
^ .•"'. ^ 




V ••• 






^^. 




^°*. 



> •...• ,^^ 




*bv' 



















w 






CHARLEMAGNE. 



REVISED BI THOMAS 0. SUMMERS, D.D. 



PUBLISHED BY A. H. BEDFORD, Age:nt, 

FOR THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH. 

1872. 






'l..>-C^S.(f f-' 



a 



^'J^lS^ 



€a\\itviU, 



rkOM 
PREFACE V 

INTRODUCTION vii 

CHAPTER I 

THE FRANKISH MONARCHY 10 

CHAPTER II. 

CHARLEMAGNE AS A WARRIOR 30 

CHAPTER IIL 

CHARLEMAGNE AS A LEGISLATOR 56 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE RELATIONS OF CHARLEMAGNE WITH THE PA- 
PACY 103 

CHAPTER V. 

THE PERSONAL CHARACTER, HISTORY, AND INFLU- 
ENCE OF CHARLEMAGNE 132 

CHAPTER VI. 

CONCLUSION 178 

(iii) 



LIFE AHJ) TIMES 



OP 



CHARLEMAGNE. 



E^TRODUCTION. 

The reign of Charlemagne lias a two-fold in- 
terest — ^historical and biographical. /Historically, 
it has a peculiar value and importance, as the era 
of the reconstruction of European society. For 
five centuries the northern hordes had been pour- 
ing down upon the lioman empire. That flood 
of barbarous invasion had swept Europe from side 
to side, from end to end. Goth, Saxon, Frank, 
Burgundian, Sclavon, Hun, Avar, rushed on in 
wild confusion ; the foremost in advance impelled 
onward by the ever-increasing pressure in the rear. 
In the storm and fury of these barbaric inroads, 
the whole fabric of society had been destroyed ; 
and, with a few exceptions, all the productions of 
ancient science, literature, and art, perished. All 
that has come down to us are but the fragments 
and relics rescued from that wreck. Well may 
that period be styled ^^ the dark ages ! ^^ We use 

(7) 



8 LIFE AND TIMES 

no hyperbole when we apply to it the language in 
which Scripture describes the primeval chaos, 
and say, "• the world was without form and void; 
and darkness was upon the face of the deep/^ 
^/^^Whilst all Europe felt the fury of the storm, 
Germany and France were its focus and centre. 
It was there that the conflicting torrents met, and 
that the devastation and ruin were complete. It 
was there, too, that the work of reconstruction 
was to commence ; ^^ for,^^ in the words of Frede- 
rick Schlegel, ^^it was Charlemagne who laid the 
sure foundation for Christian government, and 
all the improvements of its subsequent superstruc- 
ture. On this basis of Christian government and 
Christian manners, and under the cover and vivi- 
fying influence of Christian faith, sprang human 
science out of the small fragments of ancient art 
and learning which had survived all these mighty 
devastations.^^ It was, then, an era of vast his- 
torical importancG*^ 

But the life or Charlemagne has a still furthei 
interest and value as a biography. He combined 
in himself most of the elements of true greatness. 
Great by his position, through his achievements, 
and in his character; distinguished as a soldier, 
a legislator, a church reformer, and a reviver of 
learning — his personal history demands and am- 
ply repays a diligent study. Whilst his genius 
and energy would have rendered him illustrious 
in any age, his loneliness and isolation in the pe- 
riod in which he lived make him more signally 
and obviously so.^'He stands alone, and there are 
none around him to contest with him the palm 



&F CHARLEMAGNE. 9 

of greatness. Like the pyramid in tlie desert, the 
blank waste from which he rises seems to give 
him a more commanding elevation^ Among the 
generations which preceded and'which followed 
his, Alfred alone can rank with him. 

In the brief sketch which follows, we shall en- 
deavor to combine these two sources of interest — 
the historical and the biographical; and at the 
same time to show the relations subsisting between 
Charlemagne, his contemporaries, and his imme- 
diate predecessors, so as to afford some idea of the 
general character of that eventful era. In doing 
this, we shall for the most part follow the plan 
adopted by Eginhardt, the secretary, biographer, 
and friend, (perhaps, too, as we shall see, the son- 
in-law,) of the hero of our pages. We shall first 
give a brief and hasty glance at the previous his- 
tory of the Franks ; thus we shall learn the cha- 
racter of the people he came to rule, and the 
disorderly condition of society in his day; then 
proceed to trace out his career and achievements 
as a soldier and a legislator, his relations with the 
papacy, and his personal character, history, and 
influence 



10 LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER I 

THE FRANKISH MONARCHY. 

The formation of the confederacy of the Franks — Their feelings 
toward Rome — Clovis — His victories ; his crimes ; his conversion 
— Inquiry into the nature of the national conversions of the mid- 
dle ages — The successors of Clovis — The Mayors of the Palace — 
The defeat of the Mohammedans hy Charles Martel — Pepin- — His 
character ; legend of the lion and the bull ; his accession to the 
throne in place of the deposed monarch — Succeeded by Carloman 
and Carl — Character and death of the former — Carl becomes sole 
king of the Franks — Outline of his history — is acknowledged as 
emperor of the West, and receives the name of Charlemagne. 

Tacitus^ in his ^^ Treatise on the Customs and 
Tribes of Grermany/^ describes with patriotic 
shame the defeats of the Roman legions by the 
barbarians, points out the danger with which the 
empire was threatened from this quarter, and 
shows that the best hope of safety for Rome was 
afforded by the intestine feuds of her enemies. 
" Since they will not love us, I pray that their 
hatred of one another may continue and increase ; 
for in our present perilous condition, fortune can 
afford us nothing better than the discord of our 
foes.^' * But the evils apprehended by the phi- 
losophical historian were not to be thus averted. 
Pagan Rome had filled up the measure of her 
iniquities. The blood of the martyrs had sapped 

*De Moribus Germanorum, cap. xxxiii. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 11 

the foundations of her empire^ had paralyzed her 
arm, and blunted her sword. '^ The souls of them 
that were slain for the word of God, and for the 
testimony which they held, cried with a loud 
voice, saying. How long, Lord, holy and true, 
dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on 
them that dwell on the earth ?^' Rev. vi. 9, 10. 
God did not turn a deaf ear, as their blood cried 
from the ground. " He will avenge his own elect, 
though he bear long with them.^^ History teaches 
no truth with more certainty than that the perse- 
cution of the church is the ruin of those empires 
by which it is inflicted. And now the hour of 
retribution was come. Those tribes whose union 
Tacitus deprecated, learning wisdom from their 
disasters, began to band together to throw off the 
detested yoke, and to smite the tyrant to the dust. 
Among the associations formed for this purpose, 
none were more formidable than that of the 
Chauci, Catti, Cherusci, Sicambri, and other 
smaller tribes who inhabited the marshes of the 
lower Rhine and of the Weser. The spirit and 
design of the confederation is shown by the name 
they assumed — Franks, or Freemen. At first, 
the tribes thus associated retained their distinct- 
ness and mutual independence, their only bond of 
union being the object they had in common. 
Very soon, however, all tribal distinctions ceased, 
and they became fused down into one powerful 
though barbarous nation, divided into two great 
branches, the Salic and the Ripuarian. These 
names were probably derived from the localities! 
they respectively inhabited, the Salians being set- 



12 LIFE AND TIMES 

tied on the Saal, tlie Eipuarians on the banks 
(ripce^ of the Rhine. 

In speaking of this and the other confederations 
as being the instruments of Divine vengeance 
upon the doomed and guilty city, '^ drunk with 
the blood of the saints/' we are only expressing 
the sentiments of the barbarians themselves. 
Alaric always professed himself to be the minister 
of the wrath of the Almighty. Attila took the 
title of '^ the Scourge of God.'' Genseric, when 
asked by his pilot whither he should steer, replied, 
^^ Leave that to the winds and waves ; they will 
direct us to the guilty city on which God wills his 
vengeance to fall." The language of the Franks 
is yet more remarkable. In the preamble to the 
Salic code, composed shortly after their conver- 
sion to Christianity, it is said, '^ Honor to Christ 
who loves the Franks. This is the nation, which 
though small, yet brave and strong, shook off the 
hard yoke of Rome, and which, after it had re- 
cognized the sacredness of baptism, adorned with 
gold and precious stones the tombs of the martyrs 
whom the Romans had burned with fire, massa- 
cred, mutilated, or delivered to be torn to pieces 
by wild beasts." 

The Franks first assumed an important position 
in Europe under the reign of Clovis,* the grand- 
son of Merowig, who was born in the year 467 
The original seat of this prince's government was 

•^ Clovis, from Hlodo-wig, ** famous warrior," latinized 
into Clodovicus and Ludovicus, abbreviated iuto Clovia 
and Ludwig, modernized into Louis and Louisa. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 13 

Tournay in FlanderSj but he exercised a disputed 
and precarious sovereignty over the northern dis- 
tricts of Graul as far as Paris. In his fifteenth 
year, he succeeded his father Childeric, and five 
years later he had routed Syagrius, king of a 
neighboring tribe, and made Soissons, the con- 
quered capital, his own metropolis. An incident 
which happened immediately after the battle that 
put Clovis in possession of Soissons, well illus- 
trates the small advance which the Franks had 
yet made toward a settled monarchy. The spoils 
of the conquered army were, as usual, heaped 
together to be divided by lot among the victors. 
It so happened that an elaborate and exquisite 
vase, one of the sacred vessels, of a pillaged church, 
fell to the share of a private soldier. Clovis 
requested him to transfer it to himself. The 
soldier insolently refused, saying, that he only 
owed him allegiance on the field of battle, but 
that everywhere else they were equals ; and raising 
his battle-axe, shivered the vase to atoms. The 
young king was compelled to bear the affront thus 
publicly put on him. He did not forget it, how- 
ever, for in the next engagement he rode up to 
the soldier, charged him with disobeying his 
orders, and ran him through the body with his 
sword. 

It would be a tedious and useless task to nar- 
rate in detail the modes by which Clovis succeeded 
in ridding himself of his rivals and allies, ands 
obtaining possession of their dominions. A sin- 
gle incident, condensed from the prolix pages of 
Gregory of Tours, will do more to illusti-ate the 



14 LIFE AND TIMES 

character of the king and the age than pages of 
description. ^^ When Clovis came to battle against 
Alaric; he had for an ally Cloderic the son of Sig- 
bert. This Sigbert limped from a blow on the 
knee, which he had received at the battle of Tol- 
biac, fighting against the Germans. . Clovis sent 
secretly to the son of Sigbert, saying, ^Your 
father is aged, and he limps with his bad leg; if 
he should chance to die, his kingdom and our 
friendship would be transferred from him to you.' 
Seduced by this prospect, Cloderic determined to 
kill his father. Not long after this, Sigbert, 
having gone out of the town of Cologne, went 
into the neighboring forest of Buconia, and there 
fell asleep in his tent. Whilst sleeping, he was 
killed by assassins sent by his son for that purpose. 
But, by the judgment of God, he fell into the 
grave he had dug for his father. He sent to king 
Clovis to announce what had happened. Clovis 
sent back this answer : ^ I thank thee for thy 
good will, and pray thee to show thy father's 
treasures to my messengers, after which thou shalt 
possess them all.' Cloderic thereupon showed 
the treasure to the deputies. As they were ad- 
miring them, the prince said, ' This is the box in 
which my father used to keep his gold coins.' 
They replied, ' Beach thine hand down to the 
bottom of the box, that we may see them all.' 
As he stooped low for this purpose, one of them 
''lifted up his axe and split open his skull. Then 
Clovis went to Cologne, and advised the peo- 
ple to put themselves under his protection. 
They answered him by loud shouts, and having 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 15 

raised him upon their shields, made him their 
king, and gave to him the kingdom and treasures 
of Sigbert. Thus, every day/^ says his biogra- 
pher, in a manner that shows how blunted were 
his perceptions of good and evil, ^^God caused his 
enemies to fall before him, and augmented his 
kingdom, because he walked with an upright 
heart before the Lord, and did the things which 
were pleasing in his sight/^ To this may be added 
an extract from the table of contents to Sismondi's 
^'Histoire des Frangais/^ which though probably 
undesigned, has the effect of the keenest satire : 
'' Clovis wishes to kill all the rival kings of France. 
He has Sigbert and his son Cloderic assassinated. 
He has Cararic and his son put to death. After- 
wards Eagnacair and his two brothers. He has 
all the other kings of France slain. The Church 
considers whether he should be reckoned as a 
saint ! ^^ * 

By such means as these Clovis speedily made 
himself acknowledged sole chief of the Salian 
Franks, and extended his authority over most of 
northern and central G-aul. His alliance was 
eagerly courted by the neighboring princes, and 
he asked and gained in marriage Clotilda, niece 
of Grondebald, king of the Burgundians.f She 

■^ In the body of his work, Sismondi affirms that he 
■was actually canonized, together with his wife. 

f The name Burgundians, from Buhr Gunds, "allied 
warriors," shows that they were, like the Franks, a con- 
federation of tribes. Those of Gonde Bald, "pacific 
above all," and Clotilda, or Hlodo-hilda, " brilliant and 
noble," indicate that they had begun to appreciate the 
benefits of peace. 



16 LIFE AND TIMES 

was a Christian princess, and Clovis, thougli a 
pagan, did not forbid lier having their children 
baptized. The death of the first upon whom this 
rite was performed produced an unfavorable im- 
pression upon the king^s mind, but by degrees he 
was so far won over by the influence of his wife 
and the exhortations of her chaplain Remigius, 
as to declare that he was willing to adopt her reli- 
gion provided that he could have convincing 
proof of the power of her God. Soon afterwards, 
another of those confederacies which had been 
formed among the German tribes, and whose 
members had assumed the name of Allemanni, 
^^ all men,'' became jealous, and perhaps fearful of 
the growing power of the Franks. A war ensued, 
and the Allemanni had reached the Rhine, with 
the intention of marching into Gaul, when they 
were met by Clovis at Tolbiac. The battle hung 
long in suspense, and the Franks seemed on the 
point of receiving a total and ruinous defeat, 
when their leader remembered the God of the 
Christians, and the promise he had made to Clo- 
tilda. In his distress he invoked His aid. The 
tide of battle turned, and Clovis remained master 
of the field. He was now more than ever dis- 
posed to listen to the entreaties of his queen and 
her chaplain, and invited the latter to give him 
fuller information as to the doctrines of the new 
religion. As Eemigius proceeded to do so, he 
described with so much pathos the character and 
sufferings of Jesus, that the king started from his 
seat, and grasping his sword, cried out, '' Would 
I had been there with my Franks ! I would have 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 17 

avenged Mm.'' He was sooDj "however, won to 
milder though ts, and submitted to baptism. In 
this he was at once followed by three thousand of 
his warriors^ and speedily the whole nation imi- 
tated the example of their chief. It is evident, 
however, that this conversion was little more than 
nominal, since long afterwards an image of Diana 
was worshipped at Treves.* And in the capitu- 
laries of Charlemagne, and even of the later Car- 
lovingians, there occur frequent enactments 
against pagan rites and superstitions. 

It is necessary to a due understanding of this 
era that we should inquire into the character and 
results of these hasty national conversions to the 
profession of Christianity, so common among the 
barbarians of that age. In doing this, we must 
distinguish between what is direct and primary, 
and what is merely indirect and secondary in re- 
ligion. In all that concerns the former of these, 
in true conversion to God, in the commencement 
of a new spiritual life, consisting of '^ righteous- 
ness, peace, and joy, in the Holy Ghost,^^ little or 
nothing was effected ; it was scarcely more than a 
change of names. The proselytes transferred a 
superstitious and idolatrous worship from their 
old Scandinavian gods to the Triune Jehovah and 
the saints of the Romish Church, ascribing to the 

•^ There would seem to be something at Treves favor- 
able to idolatry, since to this day one of the five coats 
— each of which has been pronounced by papal infalli- 
bility to be the one worn by our Lord at his crucifixion — 
is worshipped there by crowds of pilgrims, who cry, 
*' Holy coat- 'iray for us." 



18 LIFE AND TIMES 

latter the acts and attributes they had been wont 
to adore in the former. The names of their dei- 
ties were changed, but the character and nature 
of their worship remained the same. It is in- 
deed extraordinary to observe how completely 
they adapted the forms of the Christian theology 
to the spirit of their pagan mythology. They 
were accustomed to invoke Thor as the leader of 
their armies, as the god of battles : they now 
called upon the archangel Michael. Instead of 
deprecating the hostility of Loki, as the embodi- 
ment of evil, they began to cherish the same 
feelings and to use the same language to Satan. 
The liomish Church, meanwhile, so far from op- 
posing this tendency, actually encouraged it, and 
incorporated the superstitions and ceremonies of 
heathenism with the pure creed of Christianity. 
Just .as, to adopt the sentiment of Milton, a man 
may be guilty of heresy and schism, even in the 
maintenance of orthodox truth, from the heretical 
and schismatic spirit in which he holds it ; so did 
these tribes continue in the darkness of heathen- 
ism, even after their nominal conversion to Chris- 
tianity. Alas ! even in the present day it is still 
too easy to be orthodox in doctrine, and scriptural 
in creed, and yet remain dead in trespasses and 
sins, having only ^' a form of godliness, but de- 
nying the power thereof.'^ But the mischief of 
engrafting heathenism on Christianity did not 
cease with the age and race which was thus pro- 
fessedly brought within the fold of the Saviour, 
although in reality far removed from it. It is to 
the pagan additions and perversions thus intrc>- 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 19 

duced that very mucli of the .subsequent idolatry 
and superstition of the Komish Church is trace- 
able. The papacy, more anxious to swell the 
number of her converts than to maintain the 
purity of her doctrine, not only permitted to them, 
but even adopted into her own practice, many of 
their ancient rites, utterly alien though they were 
to the spirit and precepts of the gospel. Hence 
it is that she presents the monstrous and incon- 
gruous spectacle of ceremonies and beliefs drawn 
from heathen mythologies, incorporated with, or 
grafted upon, '' the truth as it is in Jesus. ^^ 

But whilst the spiritual results of these alleged 
national conversions were thus unsatisfactory, the 
indirect and secondary effects flowing from them 
were to some considerable extent beneficial. It 
was no slight advantage, though a negative one, 
that the proselytized nations escaped the barba- 
rizing influence of their old creed and worship. 
It was morally impossible for them, whilst they 
retained these, to advance in civilization. The 
retention of the ferocious rites and doctrines which 
they had held and practiced in their native forests, 
'would have interposed an insurmountable obstacle 
to any prog^ress in the arts of peace. The mere 
destruction* of these barriers, by the abrogation of 
their ancient worship, was an immense benefit, 
since it left the path of progress unobstructed. 
At the same time, it afforded opportunities for 
those missionaries who were disposed to visit 
them to do so with safety. Previously they could 
only venture at the peril of their lives, and with 
the distinct expectation of being cut off in the 



20 LIFE. AND TIMES 

midst of tlieir labours. Now they could go with- 
out danger, carrying with them the influences and 
habits of civilization, and, in some instances, 
doubtless, the ^^ glad tidings of great joy. '' 
Though many of these missionaries were super- 
stitious and fanatical enthusiasts, yet there were 
others who were '' men of God, thoroughly fur- 
nished unto all good works. '' Such men, with 
the love of Christ glowing in their hearts, trem- 
bling upon their lips, glistening in their tearful 
eyes, swayed with a sacred eloquence the passions 
of their rude audiences. Savage men, rugged as 
the rocks, and fierce as the beasts of prey whom 
they hunted in the chase, were moved to tears, 
melted to contrition, and, like the demoniac in 
the Gospels, " found sitting at the feet of Jesus, 
clothed and in their right mind. ^^ God^s word, 
preached by faithful men, did not, could not, re- 
turn to him void. The nations were not conver- 
ted, hut individuals were. And even upon those 
who did not receive the full saving efficacy of 
Divine truth, there was yet exercised a refining 
influence. If the direct beams from the Sun of 
Righteousness did not reach their hearts, yet a 
reflected light shone around them, and illuminated 
their utter darkness ; for in this senst, as well as 
in a higher and more important one, godliness 
was found '' profitable unto all things, having 
promise of the life that now is, '' as well as " that 
which is to come. ^' 

Thus, then, though Christianity was taught in 
a grossly perverted form, it was still an immense 
advance upon the fierce and bloody rites of the 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 21 

idolatry it displaced. Its brightness was dimmed, 
its beauty obscured, and its purity sullied, by 
superstitious additions and perversions of men, 
yet it was inconceivably better than the utter 
hideousness of the systems which had preceded 
it. It was the morning twilight, bright when 
compared with the previous darkness, dark in 
comparison with the perfect day. 

Such we believe to be a fair and impartial esti- 
mate of the mingled good and evil of those hasty 
and superficial national conversions of which the 
history of the middle ages is full, and of which 
the life of Clovis affords a characteristic instance. 
To return to our narrative, however. The suc- 
cessors of Clovis by no means inherited his energy 
and talents. They degenerated with each suc- 
ceeding generation, till at length they became 
utterly imbecile, and the entire management of 
affairs fell into the hands of an officer, styled the 
mayor of the palace, or, as we should now call 
him, the lord high chamberlain. By degrees this . 
office became hereditary in the family of its pos- 
sessors, and was successively filled by men of 
distinguished ability — Pepin le Vieux, Pepin 
d'Heristal, Charles Martel, and Pepin le Bref. 
Each of these in turn augmented the power of 
the mayoralty, till ultimately its holder, though 
nominally only the first subject, was really king, 
the titular monarch retaining nothing of royalty 
but the name, and the empty honours of wear- 
ing long flowing hair,"^ and being drawn by oxen 

^' Among the various Frankish tribes, this privilege 
was confined to the rojal family. AH besides shaved 



22 LIFE AND TIMES 

in a state wagon to the annual muster of the 
Franks. 

Under the feeble reign of Thierry lY., and the 
vigorous mayoralty of Charles, an event occurred 
which greatly increased the power of the real, 
and proportionately diminished that of the nomi- 
nal, ruler. The Mohammedan hosts having burst 
from their native deserts with the resistless force 
of an avalanche, had spread themselves over the 
southern shores of the Mediterranean. Having 
reached the western ocean, Acbar, their command- 
er, spurring his horse into the waves, brandished 
his scymitar, and cried, like a second Alexander, 
^^ Allah ! give me another world to conquer for 
thee. ^' Energy like this, inspired alike by re- 
ligious fanaticism, military ardor, and the love of 
plunder, was not to be repressed by ordinary ob- 
stacles. The invaders speedily crossed the Strait 
of Gibraltar,* and very quickly overran the whole 
of Spain. The sea having failed to check their 
progress, it could scarcely be expected that moun- 
tains would avail to do so. So early as 714, and 
within three years of their occupation of the 
Peninsula, Mousa determined to cross the Pyre- 
nees, hoping to be able to crush the Frank and 
Lombard kingdoms, and thus to gain an opportu- 

their heads, leaving only a single tuft, like the scalp 
lock of North American Indians of the present day. A 
similar custom prevailed among the Normans up to the 
time of their invasion of England. 

■5^ This name was derived from this circumstance ; the 
rock on which they landed being called by the Arabs 
Gibel Tarif, or Tarek, " the HiU of Tarif, " that being 
the name of their leader. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 23 

nity of conquering Italy and Rome itself. Had 
tlie enterprise been then proceeded with, it could 
hardly have failed of success. Circumstances, 
however, most providentially combined to post- 
pone the attempt till 731, when a host, whose 
recorded numbers defy credibility, passed the 
mountain barrier which separates France from 
Spain. They were commanded by the veteran 
Abderahman, their most* daring and successful 
leader. The southern provinces of France were 
soon sub'dued; plundered, and laid waste. Every 
attempt made to check their advance failed. The 
fate of Christendom seemed sealed. Nor can we 
wonder that men abandoned themselves in despair 
to their seemingly inevitable doom. But He 
^^who stilleth the noise of the waves and the 
tumult of the people,^' had uttered his decree — 
'' Hitherto shaft thou come, but no farther, and 
here shall thy proud waves be stayed. ^^ Charles, 
the commander of the Franks, determined to 
make a last desperate stand in defence of his 
country and his faith. He mustered his troops 
on the banks of a little stream between Tours and 
Poitiers, and there awaited the enemy. For six 
days the armies lay encamped in sight of each 
other, content with skirmishing, neither venturing 
upon a general engagement. Their leaders, feel- 
ing that the destinies of Christendom hung trem- 
bling in the balance, waited for an opportunity of 
striking a decisive blow. At length, on a Satur- 
day, m the month of October, 732, the armies 
met in the shock of battle. In the brief and 
obscure narrative of contemporary chroniclers, 



24 LIFE AND TIMES 

and tlie wild fictions of subsequent writers, it is 
very difficult to gain any correct idea of this en- 
gagement, which decided whether Europe was to 
remain Christian or be subjugated beneath the 
debasing yoke of Mohammed. We only discover 
that the Franks stood firm as a rock, against 
which the light-armed and agile Arabs dashed 
themselves in vain, and were flung off like spray. 
Charge after charge tes made against their 
phalanx, which Isidore, one of the few contem 
porary writers, describes " as an immovable mass, 
like a wall of ice.^^ As the day wore on, the 
prodigious strength of the Franks began to tell 
in their favor, and the wearied assailants, unable 
to charge and wheel round in retreat with the 
same celerity as in the morning, fell fast under 
their opponent's blows. Abderahman himself 
was among the slain. Towards evening, Eudes, 
Count of Aquitaine, led a party round to fall upon 
the baggage and rear of the invaders. This in- 
creased the disorder into which they had already 
begun to fall, and when night separated the com- 
batants, the IFranks remained masters of the field, 
and the Arabs retired to their tents, evidently 
worsted. It seems probable that Charles wished 
to pursue them into their encampments, but his 
soldiers held up their arms, to intimate that they 
were too exhausted with the toils of the day to 
continue the engagement. He therefore permit- 
ted them to bivouac on the field of battle, and 
with the first dawn of morning again drew them 
up in line, expecting a renewal of the attack. 
To his surprise, no enemy appeared; the tents 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 25 

still whitened the plain almost as far as the eye 
could reach, but there came from them no sound 
or sign of life. Apprehending treachery, he re- 
connoitered the hostile camp, and found it indeed 
deserted. In the dead of the night the Arabs 
had fled, and were already far in advance. Charles 
had suffered too much during the battle to follow 
in pursuit ; he therefore divided the rich spoils 
found in the tents among his soldiers, and dis- 
missed them to their homes. His personal ex- 
ploits on the field gained for him the name by 
which he is known in history, Charles Martel, 
Charles the Hammerer. 

Charles Martel having by these and similar 
achievements augmented the authority of the 
mayoralty, died, October 21st, 741, and was suc- 
ceeded by his sons, Carloman, who speedily retired 
into a monastery, and Pepin, surnamed le Bref, 
or le Gros, in consequence of being exceedingly 
corpulent, and only four and a half feet high. 
His prowess and character may be judged of from 
an incident narrated by Gregory of Tours, which, 
whether true or false, will show the estimate 
formed of him by his own age. Hearing that 
some of his officers had been indulging in jocular 
remarks on his personal appearance, he invited 
them to witness a combat between a lion and a 
wild bull. The animals were let loose together 
in the arena, when the lion at once sprang upon 
the bull and pinned him to the earth. The bull 
rushed madly to and fro, striving to shake off his 
fierce assailant, but in vain. '' Which of you,'' 
said Pepin, turning to his officers, "will make 



26 LIFE AND TIMES 

that beast let go his prey T^ They only replied 
by a stare of astonishment. '^ The task, then/' 
said he, '' is mine /^ and springing into the arena, 
armed only with his battle-axe, he assaulted the 
combatants so impetuously as to kill the lion and 
drive the bull back to his den. 

It was not to be expected that officers so able 
and energetic as those who held the mayoralty 
should remain very long subject to kings so feeble 
as those of France at this period. The condition 
of affairs, too, was such as to forbid the continued 
separation of the real and nominal sovereignty. 
A compact and vigorous government was needed 
to ward off the attacks of foreign enemies, who 
were crowding on every point of the frontier, as 
well as to repress those intestine feuds which 
threatened to rend asunder the imperfectly or- 
ganized state. Pepin, therefore, having first 
gained for himself the sole and undivided mayor- 
alty, found no difficulty in inducing the Frank 
warriors to declare the imbecile line of monarchs 
at an end, and to place him on the vacant throne. 
He was inaugurated as king, after the custom of 
all the Grermanic tribes, by being raised on the 
bucklers of the warriors at their annual assembly, 
held at Soissons in March, 752. Ecclesiastical 
consent to the change was either felt to be neces- 
sary by the Franks, or deemed expedient by 
Pepin. Two bishops were therefore dispatched 
to Italy to gain the papal sanction. Just at that 
crisis, Home was in imminent peril from many 
enemies, and needed the strong arm of Pepin and 
his Franks for its defence. Under these circum- 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 27 

stances, the pope promptly replied to Pepin's 
messenger, that the decision of the nation had 
been arrived at by heavenly inspiration, and em- 
powered theni to substitute for the old line of 
monarchs one which should discharge the duties 
as well as bear the name of king. Pepin was 
thereupon anointed and crowned by Boniface, and 
the ceremony was subsequently repeated by the 
pope himself. Eginhardt quaintly adds, " With 
regard to Childeric, who had falsely borne the 
name of king, Pepin had him shaved and put 
into a monastery, with his family. '^ 

Pepin died in 768, leaving two sons, Carloman 
and Carl,* or, as we should now call him, Charles, 
between whom he divided his dominions. The 
former seems to have been of a suspicious, fretful, 
and feeble character, constantly engaged in broils 
with his brother and the other neighboring chiefs 
— broils which he entered into without necessity, 
and abandoned without honor. About two years 
after the accession of the youths to the throne, 
we find that Carloman, for some reason not fully 
explained, began to equip an army to attack the 
territory of his brother. In the midst of his 
preparations, however, he suddenly died, A.D. 
771. His widow, apprehensive of the resentment 
of Charles, fled with her two sons to the court of 
Desiderius, king of the Lombards. Charles 
marched with his army to the frontiers of his late 
brother's territory, and was at once chosen by itg 
prelates and nobles to fill the vacant throne. He 

■^Carl, ''a strong man." 



28 LIFE AND TIMES 

thus became^ in his twenty-seventh year, sole king 
of the Franks. His dominions now extended 
over almost the whole of modern France, and 
stretched eastward through Germany as far as 
the Saal. His eastern frontier, however, was 
very indeterminate and fluctuating. In the year 
774, by the defeat of Desiderius, he annexed 
northern Italy to his dominions, and added the 
famous iron crown of Lombardy to the one he 
already wore. By a series of campaigns, extend- 
ing over a period of thirty years, he subjugated 
almost the whole of central Europe. In the year 
800, being at Rome, he was on Christmas-day 
kneeling before the high altar of the church of 
St. Peter, when the pope came behind him, and 
(as he always averred) unexpectedly placed upon 
his head a magnificent crown, saying, as he did 
so, "Hail, Charles Augustus, crowned by the 
hand of God emperor of the Romans V He was 
then invested with the imperial mantle, and, amid 
the acclamations of the people, led to the throne 
of the Csesars, and solemnly installed as successor 
to those ancient masters of the world. Nicepho- 
rus, the emperor of Constantinople, subsequently 
acknowledged him as emperor of the West, with 
the title of Augustus, thus consenting, according 
to the ideas of that age, to divide the empire of 
the world with him. The line of demarcation 
between their respective territories seems to have 
been the river Raab in Hungary, and the moun- 
tains of Carniola. Nor were his influence and 
fame confined to Christendom. Haroun Al Ra- 
shid, the caliph of Bagdad, respected, and the 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 29 

Moorish rulers of Spain appealed to his power. 
Thus, by the unanimous suffrages of his contem- 
poraries, he was acknowledged as Carolus Magnus 
— Charles the Great ; whilst all succeeding ages 
have identified greatness with his name — he is 
known to us, not as Charles, but as Charlemagne. 
To fill up this outline with a sketch of his most 
important achievements, to mark out his position 
in contemporaneous history, and to trace his in- 
fluence upon subsequent times, will be the object 
of the following pages. 



80 LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER II 

CHARLEMAGNE AS A WARRIOR. 

Condition and extent of his kingdom on his accession — The Saxons 
especially dangerous; their character and power — Massacre at 
Daventer — The Franks take revenge for the outrage — The Lom- 
bard war breaks out — Overthrow of the Lombard kingdom — The 
Saxons break the truce — Second Saxon campaign — The Lombards 
revolt — Second Lombard campaign — Third Saxon campaign — 
Spanish affairs — Conquest of the northern provinces of the Pe- 
ninsula — Battle of Roncesvalles-^-Eginhardt's summary of the 
Saxon wars-— Military activity of Charlemagne — Comparison with 
Napoleon — A campaign described by a contemporary chronicler 
— Statistical table of the principal expeditions of Charlemagne — 
Analysis of this table — Characteristic peculiarities of these wars 
— Summary of their results. 

Charlemagne, on his accession to the throne, 
found his territory hemmed in by enemies. His 
frontier was threatened on every point. On the 
sea-coasts, especially those of the northern prov- 
inces, the sea-rovers, or Norsemen, had commen- 
ced that career of piracy which ultimately reached 
even to the shores of Spain and the Mediterra- 
nean, made many of the maritime provinces of 
Britain and France unpeopled wastes, and caused 
the introduction into the Gallic liturgy of the 
article, A furore JSFormanorum libera nos Domine 
— '^ From the fury of the Northmen deliver us, 
Lord. '^ In the south, the Moors still hung on 
the slopes of the Pyrenees, burning to avenge the 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 31 

defeat tliey had received forty years before at the 
hauds of the grandfather of the young king, and 
eagerly watching for an opportunity to proselytize 
and pillage France and Germany. But the 
greatest danger was to be apprehended on the 
eastern frontier from the still barbarous descend- 
ants of those tribes which had overthrown the 
Roman empire^ and their yet more ferocious suc- 
cessors on the remoter north and east — Saxons^ 
Huns^ and Avars. Of these^ the Saxons were 
most to be dreaded, because they were the nearest, 
the most powerful, and, in addition to the ferocity 
of their manners, were bigoted and fanatical idol- 
aters. Their idolatry, too, was of a peculiarly 
savage character. It abounded in human sacri- 
fices. Its gods delighted in bloodshed. Almost 
the only virtue in its moral code was military 
valour — almost the only vice, cowardice. Teach- 
ing the doctrine of immortality, it offered the joys 
of Valhalla to those only who fell in battle fight- 
ing bravely ; all who died a natural death were 
consigned to the dark and gloomy halls of 
Niflheim. So inflexible was this sentence, that 
the god Baldur, being accidentally slain at a ban- 
quet, could not escape though all the other deities 
interceded on his behalf. The joys of Yalhalla 
consisted in fighting all day; at nightfall, the 
wounds received by the combatants miraculously 
healed, and they spent the night in feasting on 
the boiled flesh of the boar Soehrimnir, which 
every day was renewed entire. ^^ But what have 
the heroes to drink ?^^ asked Gangler, 'Mo they 
drink only water ?^^ ^^A very silly question 



32 LIFE AND TIMES 

that, '' replied Har : ^^ dost thou imagine that 
All-Father would invite kings, and jarls, and 
other great men, and give them nothing to drink 
but water? In that case, methinks, many of 
those who had endured the greatest hardships and 
received deadly wounds in order to obtain access 
to Yalhalla, would find that they had paid^ too 
great a price for their water drink, and would 
complain of their poor entertainment. But th 
case is quite otherwise — the goat Heidrun stands 
above Valhalla, and gives from her teats such 
abundance of mead that the heroes are all filled 
with it each night. '^ * 

All history proves the power of superstition 
to assimilate its votaries to itself, and testifies 
to the truth of the psalmist's assertion, when 
speaking of the gods of the heathen, '^ They 
that make them ai'e like unto them. '' Man 
elevates his own natural tendencies, embodies 
them in the persons of his gods, falls down and 
worships before the deified reflection of his own 
vices and crimes, and thus sanctions, confirms, 
and renders intense the devices and desires of 
his own evil heart. The religion of a people 
and their prevailing dispositions reciprocally act 
and react on each other, and combine to form 
the national character. Thus, in the coarse, 
sensual, and savage creed of the Saxons, we 
have an infallible indication of their ferocity and 
bnitality. It becomes us with reverence and 
o;ratitude to contrast with this barbarous and 



* The Prose Edda, cap. xzxix. 



or CHARLEMAGNE. 83 

barbarizing system^ the benign influences of the 
doctrines of Christianity, so pure, spiritual, and 
gracious. But for the grace of Grod, which 
alone makes us to differ, the cruel and bloody 
worship of our Saxon ancestors would have 
been ours. How deep are our obligations to 
God who has cast our lot in these happier days ! 
God forbid that the woe denounced against 
Chorazin and Bethsaida should fall upon us, as 
it assuredly will should we remain negligent of 
our transcendent privileges ! 

Whilst the Saxons were thus to be feared 
from their fierce spirit, as indicated and con- 
firmed by their religious creed, they were yet 
more to be dreaded from the military strength 
of their confederation. This arose from two 
causes. First, their numbers were very con- 
siderable, as we may gather from the extent of 
territory they occupied. It included modern 
Denmark, Hanover, and all Germany, east of 
the Saal, and north of Bohemia. This district, 
it is true, was but thinly peopled, but when we 
remember that every man was a soldier, and 
that every soldier deemed death in battle to be 
the sure and only passport to immortal joy, 
their military prowess will be evident. A fur- 
ther cause of apprehension was to be found in 
the fact, that there arose among them at that 
time many chiefs of ability and influence suffi- 
cient to unite their otherwise desultory efforts 
in the pursuit of one common end, and to con- 
duct their enterprises to a successful issue, even 
when directed against troops more numerous 
2 



34 LIFE AND TIMES 

and better disciplined than their own. What 
Arminiiis had been to the Germans in their 
conflict with the llomans on the same territory, 
that Witikind* and Alboin were to the Saxons 
in their wars with the Franks. 

The presence of such a race in the Tery cen- 
tre and heart of Europe, placed in imminent 
peril the peace and safety of all those countries 
which had made any progress toward a perma- 
nent settlement. A very short march from 
their own frontiers would bring them to those 
of Italy or Greece, and involve a repetition of 
the carnage and desolation wrought by the 
hordes under Alaric and Attila. Their posi- 
tion was one of special danger to the I'ranks. 
Occupying opposite banks of the Saal, the two 
races, like all uncivilized and half civilized 
nations, were constantly at war; and whenever 
a few of the Saxon leaders so far relinquished 
their intestine feuds as to combine, they could 
at any time carry their arms into the very heart 
of the Frank territory. 

As it was from this quarter that danger was 
chiefly to be apprehended, it was to it that the 
attention of Charlemagne f was first directed. 
In the year 772, immediately upon his accession 

* That is, Wise Child. 

f It may be as well to mention, that we shall through- 
out speak of him as Charlemagne, that being the name 
by which he is known in historj^ though its employ- 
ment at the early period of his reign involves an ana- 
chronism, the epithet Magnus not having been added 
till many years later. 



OE CHARLEMAGNE. 35 

to the sole sovereignty of the Franks, he took 
measures to destroy the dangerous power of his 
neighbors. In that year the usual annual muster 
of the Frankish warriors was held at Worms, to 
review their military strength and to discuss their 
projects for the ensuing campaign. There had 
been a fresh outbreak of bigotry and ferocity on 
the part of the Saxons in the previous winter. 
Libuinus, a pious and devoted missionary among 
them, had succeeded in gathering around him a 
band of converts, and in erecting a church at 
Daventer. The invariable results of the intro- 
duction of Christianity had followed. Savage 
warriors were reclaimed from their fierce and 
brutal pursuits and pleasures ; and under the in- 
fluence of their peaceful industry, the desert and 
the solitary place were glad, and the wilderness 
rejoiced and blossomed as a rose. Upon this 
little garden in the desert the pagan Saxons had 
burst, burned the church, slaughtered the con- 
verts, and only allowed the missionary to escape 
with life, at the intercession of an old man, who 
argued that since he came as ambassador from the 
King of heaven, he ought to enjoy impunity. 
Charlemagne availed himself of this outrage to 
excite afresh the old national feud. He had no 
difficulty in persuading the Franks to consider the 
massacre of their fellow-Christians as a provoca- 
tion which it behooved them to avenge, and 
marching at the head of his troops into the Saxon 
territory, routed the enemy in their stronghold at 
Ehresburg, destroyed the temple and idol of 
Hermansaul; and having devastated the surround- 



86 LIFE AND TIMES 

ing country^ bore back in triumph to France a 
vast treasure of gold and silver. The Saxons, 
terrified at this sudden blow, gave hostages to the 
conqueror, and consented to the establishment of 
strong military posts throughout their territory. 

Charlemagne was probably the more disposed 
to grant peace to the Saxons, from the fact that he 
had received the most urgent entreaties from Pope 
Adrian I. to rescue Eome from the hands of the 
Lombards. Apart from all considerations of poli- 
cy, there were many personal reasons which in- 
duced him to lend a favorable ear to the papal 
entreaties- It will be remembered that the widow 
and orphans of Carloman took refuge at the court of 
Desiderius, the Lombard monarch, who not only 
afforded them shelter, but now warmly espoused 
their cause, and demanded that the dominions of 
the deceased king should be restored to them. A 
still mor^ private and personal cause of rupture 
existed in the fact that Charlemagne, having es- 
poused a daughter of Desiderius, had divorced her 
at the command of the pope. Notwithstanding 
these grounds of quarrel, Charlemagne attempted 
negotiation, and even offered a sum of money as 
the price of peace. To this he was probably led 
by the disinclination of his subjects to engage in 
Italian wars, and by the danger still to be appre- 
hended on the Saxon frontier, which rendered 
him unwilling to lead his troops so far from home. 
But Desiderius, despising the youth and inexpe- 
rience of his opponent, and trusting in his ability 
to defend the passes of the Alps which he had 
seized; refused to listen to the proposed terms. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 37 

Charlemagne appointed Geneva as the place of 
meeting for the annual muster of the Franks in 
the spring of 773, and there it was determined to 
march for the defence of the pope. The army was 
divided into two bodies, one, commanded by the 
king, taking the route across Mont Cenis; the 
other, under his uncle Bernard, that across Mount 
JouXj now known as Mount St. Bernard.''' Both 
succeeded in forcing the Alpine passes, and thence- 
forward the career of conquest was easy and unin- 
terrupted. The open country was soon overrun, 
and Milan, Yerona, and Pavia, were in turn re- 
duced. Desiderius, being taken prisoner, was 
dispatched into France, where he received the 
tonsure, and was admitted as a monk into the 
monastery of Corvey. 

The return of Charlemagne from Italy was ac- 
celerated by intelligence that the Saxons had 
taken advantage of his absence to break out into 
revolt (A.D. 774.) They had succeeded in sur- 
prising and putting to the sword the garrison he 
had left at Ehresburg, had destroyed most of the 
strongholds he had established in their territory, 
had made a successful inroad into his dominions, 
and had returned laden with spoil. Scarcely had 
he been able to suppress this outbreak, when he 
was summoned to Italy to quell an insurrection of 
the Lombards, who were again up in arms, headed 
by Adalgis, the son of the dethroned monarch. 



■^ Possibly from this circumstance, though more 
probably from the hospice upon it dedicated to St. Ber- 
nard. 



88 LIFE AND TIMES 

and supported by tlie Greek emperor. This occu- 
pied the year 775, and whilst absent in Italy the 
Saxons broke out afresh. He summoned his army 
to meet him at Worms in May, 776, led them 
into Saxony, and again compelled the insurgent 
tribes to sue for peace. His presence and inter- 
ference were now demanded in the affairs of 
Spain. Abd'alrahman, the sole survivor of the 
Ommiade dynasty, having escaped to that country, 
was there acknowledged by the Moors as their 
caliph, in opposition to the Abbasside race, who 
had assumed the caliphate at Bagdad. This 
schism in the Mohammedan body was not, how- 
ever, concurred in by the chiefs of the northern 
provinces, and Ibn al Arabi, lord of Saragossa, 
solicited the aid of the Franks against the Om- 
miades. Charlemagne, remembering the danger 
with which the Mohammedan power had so re- 
cently threatened Europe, eagerly availed himself 
of this opportunity of gaining an influence in the 
affitiirs of Spain. He led two armies across the 
Pyrenees in the spring of 778, and having con- 
quered the whole country north of the Ebro, 
established in each district of it governors who 
were willing to take an oath of allegiance and 
fidelity to himself. By thus introducing rivalry 
among the Moorish chiefs, he dissolved that unity 
which was still fraught with so much danger to 
Christendom ; while, by establishing his suprema- 
cy over their northern provinces, he secured the 
safety of his own southern possessions. Any 
further enterprises in this quarter were forbidden, 
however, by the indomitable Saxons, who were 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. . ij\) 

again in rebellion under their heroic leader Witi- 
kind. 

It wavS as Charlemagne was hastening from 
Spain to crush this new insurrection that he fought 
the battle of Eoncesvalles, so famous among the 
romance writers of the middle ages, and so 
strangely pei*verted by them. Stripped of its 
fictitious adornments, the true history of the bat- 
tle appears to be as follows : — The Christians of 
the Pyrenees, who were more jealous of their 
Frank than of their Mohammedan neighbors, to- 
gether with some of the Saracen chiefs, concerted 
an attack upon the retiring army as it repassed 
their mountains. An ambuscade was formed in 
the dense forests which clothe the steep and rug- 
ged rocks through which the valley of Ronces- 
valles winds. The main body, commanded by the 
king in person^ was allowed to pass unassailed ; but 
when the rear-guard, in charge of the baggage, 
and under the command of the gallant Rutland, oi 
. Roland, or Orlando, as the name is variously spelt, 
were toiling up the narrow and tortuous defile, the 
mountaineers rushed upon them from their con- 
cealed fastnesses. The Franks made a desperate, 
but vain resistance. They were slain almost to a 
man, the baggage was plundered, and the assail- 
ants dispersed with the spoil to their mountain 
strongholds, before even the tidings of the attack 
could reach the king. When he did hear of what 
had happened, he at once retraced his steps, but it 
was too late. Pursuit was impossible. He there- 
fore contented himself with erecting a chapel and 
monuments to the memory of the slain, and passed 



40 . LIFE AND TIMES 

on to wipe out his disgrace by new victories over 
the Saxons. 

'^ The war which Charlemagne then commenced 
against the Saxons/^ says his secretary and bio- 
grapher Eginhardt, ^^ was the longest and most 
cruel which he ever undertook^ and that which 
most fatigued his people. For the Saxons were 
of a ferocious disposition, and addicted to the 
worship of devils. Enemies of our religion, they 
did not deem it wrong to violate the laws of God 
or the rights of man. Other causes besides dis- 
turbed the peace each day. Our frontiers and 
theirs joined ; hence we were constantly exposed 
to carnage and plunder at their hands. A war, 
therefore, began which lasted thirty-three years. 
It would have been finished sooner but for the 
perfidy of the Saxons. We cannot say how often 
they were vanquished, or how often they submit- 
ted. Often they promised to abandon the wor- 
ship of devils and submit to Christianity, but they 
apostatized again as soon as they had an opportu- 
nity. In fact, there was scarcely a year which did 
not prove their fickleness and perversity. But the 
magnanimity of the king, and his constancy in 
good and bad fortune, could never be vanquished. 
He never left their outrages or their perfidy un- 
punished, however often renewed. Finally, having 
defeated all who were in the habit of resisting 
him, having reduced them into submission, and 
having transported ten thousand families from the 
most turbulent district into the heart of his own 
territory, he terminated a war which had continued 
so many years. The Saxons renounced the wor 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 41 

ship of demons and the rites of their forefathers : 
thev embraced the Christian faith, and being; 
mixed with the Franks, became only one people/'* 
Thus was the whole mature life of Charlemagne 
spent. His reign was but one continuous and 
protracted campaign. He seemed to his enemies 
to be endowed with ubiquity. Now fighting the 
Saxons in their hitherto inaccessible fastnesses ; 
then flying to the Pyrenees, or to the islands of 
the Mediterranean, to meet a Moorish invader; 
then in Italy, repressing an insurrection of the 
Lombards, or rescuing Kome from their attacks, 
or defending Naples against the Arabs ; anon 
storming the ring fortresses of Huns and Avars, 
or crushing a Bavarian revolt, or mustering his 
troops on the coast to repel an incursion of the 
Scandinavian pirates. In this rapidity of military 
movements, and in the energy and success with 
which he conducted his campaigns, we are forci- 
bly reminded of that modern conqueror, who, a 
thousand years later, carried the devastations of 
war over the same region, who loved to compare 
himself with the hero of these pages, and was 
styled by his flatterers, '^ the Charlemagne of the 
nineteenth century.^^ This analogy between Na- 
poleon and Charlemagne applies not only to their 
activity and achievements as warriors, but to nu- 
merous other events of their history, and points 
in their character — their legislative efforts, their 
patronage of art and learning, their simplicity of 
dress, their personal superintendence of the mi- 

^ Vita Garoli Magni, 



42 LIFE AND TIMES 

nutest affairs of their vast domains, and the fate 
of their respective empires. We point out the 
parallel thus early that our readers may trace it 
for themselves as we proceed. 

To narrate in detail the military achieve- 
ments of Charlemagne, or even to glance at the 
history of each of his campaigns, would be a 
tedious and painful task, and could serve no 
useful purpose, except it were to excite our 
gratitude to Grod that he has '' sent peace in 
our time, '^ that he has averted the frightful 
scourge of -military invasion from our own shores, 
and that even the horrors of war have been in 
some measure mitigated by the indirect influence 
of Christianity. Instead, therefore, of tracing 
out this career of bloodshed, we shall condense 
from a contemporary chronicler the narrative of 
one of the campaigns of that age, so as to illus- 
trate the character and conduct of these wars, 
and shall then give a summary of the whole in a 
tabulated form. 

The narrative selected as being at once the 
briefest and most characteristic, is that of a war 
between the Franks and Bretons, related by 
Ermoldus Nigellus. The events described oc- 
curred indeed four years after the death of Charle- 
magne, but are not the less fitted for our purpose. 

The chronicler relates the accession of Louis, 
or Hluto-wigh, as he calls him, on the death of 
his father, and the summons to court, according 
to ancient custom, of the various chiefs stationed 
on the frontiers. Amongst those who came was 
Lande-Bert, whose post was on the Breton fron- 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 43 

tier. ^^ Well, Frank/' said the king to liim, ^Hell 
me what is the nation near thee doing. Does it 
honour God and the holy church ? Does it obey 
its king and leave my territories in peace ?^' Then 
Lande-Bert bowed and replied, ^^It is an accursed 
and malicious race — Christian only in name, for 
it has neither faith nor works. Their king's 
name is Murman, but he governs his people very 
badly. They often attack and cross our bounda- 
ries, but they never get home again without being 
the worse for it.'' ^^ Lande-Bert," answered 
the king, ^^ what you say sounds very strangely. 
I perceive that I must punish them ; yet, before 
marching against them, I must send them a mes- 
sage, more especially as their chief has received 
the holy sacrament of baptism. Wither* shall 
go to him from me." Wither, an abbot, very 
wise and prudent in business, mounts on horse- 
back immediately, and rides, without stopping, 
by the shortest ways, for he knew the country. 
Presently he reached Murman' s house, which was 
situated between a thick forest and a river, and 
was very strongly fortified by hedges and ditches. 
^' I salute you, Murman," said Wither. ^^ And 
I you," replied Murman, and, as usual, gave him 
a kiss. They then sat down at a good distance 
from one another, and Wither delivered his mes- 
sage. The Breton listened, with his eyes fixed 
on the ground, whilst the adroit messenger en- 
deavored to prevail upon him to yield, using for 
that purpose promises, entreaties, and threats, 

■^ Wit-Her, ''wise and noble. " 



44 LIFE AND TIMES 

when suddenly the wife of Murman, a haughty 
and insidious woman, entered. She had just left 
her bed^ and, according to custom, brought the 
first kiss to her husband. Having embraced him, 
she turned contemptuously to the Frank and said, 
^^King of the Bretons, who is this stranger? 
What does he here ?'' Murman replied, '^ His 
business concerns men : woman, go in peace to 
thy own affairs '/^ and he then requested that he 
might be allowed the night for reflection. 

At break of day, Wither presented himself at 
the door of the chiefs apartment to demand an 
answer. Murman, in a voice broken with sleep 
and wine, said, " Tell thy king that I do not in- 
habit his territory, and do not want his laws : I 
refuse to pay tribute, and I defy his power. '' 
^^ Listen, Murman, '' said the sage Wither : '' our 
ancestors always said thy race was fickle and in- 
constant, and now I see it was with reason, for 
the prattle of a foolish woman has unsettled thy 
mind. We shall come against thee with thou- 
sands of troops, and neither thy marshes, thy 
forests, nor thy ditches, will be able to protect 
thee. '' 

Wither comes back in haste with his answer. 
The king instantly commands arms and ammuni- 
tion to be prepared, and his troops to assemble in 
the town of Yannes. The Franks, the Suabians, 
the Saxons, the Thuringians, the Burgundians, 
all come thither, equipped for war, and the king 
himself arrives, after visiting the holy places in 
his road, and receiving presents to enrich his 
treasury. The trumpet gives the signal, and the 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 45 

soldiers pass the frontier. They carry oif the 
flocks^ hunt the men through their forests and 
marshes, burn the houses, and spare nothing but 
the churches. The Bretons, defeated and dis- 
persed, dare no longer meet them in the open plain, 
but perfidiously kill them from ambushes and in 
narrow and dangerous defiles. Meanwhile Murman 
himself determines to go and meet the invaders : 
he takes a javelin in each hand, springs upon his 
horse, drains, according to the custom of his 
country, a goblet of wine, embraces his wife and 
children and servants, and departs, saying, ^' If 
I can meet that king I will pay him what he de- 
mands of me : I will pay him tribute with irou.^' 
He and his troop soon fall in with a party of 
Franks, headed by a man named Kosel, and, ac- 
cording to their national tactics, assail it in front, 
flank, and rear, hastily retreat, and then return 
to the charge. Murman singles out Kosel, drives 
his horse against him, and cries out, " Frank, 
shall I make thee a present ? Here is one I have 
kept for thee : take it and remember me.^^ Say- 
ing these words, he hurled his javelin against 
Kosel, who awaited it without fear, warded it oif 
with his buckler, and replied, ^' Breton, I have 
received thy present, take this in return.'^ Then, 
spurring his horse, he strikes the temples of Mur- 
man, not with a light javelin, but with the heavy 
lance which the Franks carry. It pierces the 
chiefs iron helmet, and, with a single blow, fells 
him to the earth. The Frank then jumps from 
his horse and cuts oif the head of his enemy, but 
as he is doing so a companion of Murman's strikes 



46 LIFE AND TIMES 

Lim in tlie back, and lie perishes in the moment 
of victory. The report soon spreads that the 
head of the Breton chief is brought into the 
camp, and the Franks flock to see it. They take 
it to Wither, that he may recognize it. He 
washes the blood from the face, combs the hair, 
and declares it to be that of Murman. The 
Bretons then submitted to the king, promised to 
attend to his commands, and he thereupon left 
them in peace. "^ 

The difference between these Carlovingian 
campaigns and those of modern times becomes 
evident as we read this curious narrative. They 
were not contests between disciplined and or- 
ganized masses, but a series of individual fights, 
of single combats, and forcibly remind us of the 
Homeric battles. The qualities demanded of a 
military chieftain were just such as the Eiad 
celebrates in its heroes — personal strength, ac- 
tivity, and courage, skill in all athletic exercises, 
and ability to endure the hardships and brave the 
perils of a soldier's life, were deemed even more 
essential than that strategic skill which now con- 
stitutes the great and almost sole excellence of 
a commander. When we come to speak of the 
personal history of Charlemagne, we shall find 
abundant proofs of his possession of these quali- 
ties in an extraordinary degree. 

The following statistical table, extracted from 
Guizot's History of Civilization in France, will 

"5^ Abridged from •' Dix Ans d* Etudes Historiques, " 
Par M. Aug. Thierry. 



OE CHARLEMAGNE. 



47 



give an idea of the number and frequency of his 
campaigns : 

TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL EXPEDITIONS OF 
CHARLEMAGNE. 



NO. 


DATE. 


ENEmES. 


OBSERVATIONS. 


1 


769 


Against the Aquitani. 


He goes to the Dordogne. 


2 


772 


" the Saxons. 


He goes beyond the Weser. 


3 


773 


" the Lombards. 


He goes to Pavia and Ve- 
rona. 


4 


774 


« Idem. 


He takes Pavia and visits 
Rome. 


5 


774 


" the Saxons. 




6 


775 


" Idem. 




7 


776 


" the Lombards. 


He goes to Treviso. 


8 


776 


" the Saxons. 


He goes to the source of 
the Lippe. 


9 


778 


« tho Arabs in 
Spain. 


He goes to Saragossa. 


10 


778 


" the Saxons. 




11 


779 


'' Idem. 


He goes to Osnabruck. 


12 


780 


" Idem. 


He goes to the Elbe. 


13 


782 


" Idem. 


He goes to the confluence 
of the Weser and Alier. 


14 


783 


" the Saxons. 


He goes to the Elbe. 


15 


784 


" Idem. 


He goes to the Saal and 
the Elbe. 


16 


785 


" Idem. 


He goes to the Elbe. 


17 


785 


" tlie Thuring-ians. 




18 


780 


" the Bretons.- 




19 


787 


" the Lombards. 


He goes to Capua. 


20 


787 


" the Bavarians. 


He goes to Augsburg. 


21 


788 


" the Huns or 
Avars. 


He goes to Ratisbon. 


22 


789 


« the Sclaves. 


He goes between the Elbe 
and the Oder. 


23 


791 


" the Huns. 


He goes to the confluence 
of the Danube and the 
Raab. 


24 


794 


" the Saxons. 




25 


795 


" Idem. 




26 


796 


" Idem. 




27 


798 


« the Huns. 


Under the orders of his 
son Louis. 


28 

1 


796 


« the Arabs. 


Under tho orders of bis 
son Pepin. 



48 



LIFE AND TIMES 



EXPEDITIONS OF CHARLEMAGNE — CONTINUED. 



NO. 


! 

DATE 


ENEMIES. 


OBSERVATIONS. 


29 


797 


Against the Saxona. 


lie goes to the Weser and 
Elbe. 


30 


797 


" the Arabs. 


By his spn Louis. 


31 


798 


" the Saxons. 


He goes beyond the EU)e. 


32 


801 


" the Lombards. 


By his son Pepin to Chieti. 


33 


801 


" the Arabs of 


By his son Lonis to Bar- 






Spain. 


celona. 


34 


802 


" the Saxons. 


By his sons beyond the 
Elbe. 


35 


804 


« Idem. 


lie goes beyond the Elbe. 


36 


805 


" the Sclaves. 


By his son Charles. 


37 


806 


" Idem. 


By his son Charles. 


38 


806 


" the Saracens of 
Corsica. 


By his son Pepin. 


39 


806 


. « the Arabs of 
Spain. 


By his son Louis. 


40 


807 


" the Saracens of 

Corsica. 
" the Arabs of 


By his generals. 


41 


807 


Idem. 






Spain. 




42 


808 


" the Danes and 
Northmen. 




43 


809 


" the Greeks. 


In Dalmatia, by his son 
Pepin. 


44 


809 


" the Arabs of 
Spain. 




45 


810 


" tlio Greeks. 


Idem. 


46 


810 


" tlie Saracens in 
Corsica and 
Sardinia. 




47 


810 


" the Lanes. 


He goes in person to the 
Weser and Aller. 


48 


811 


" Idem. 




49 


811 


" tlic Avars. 




50 


811 


" the Bretons. 




51 


812 


" the Sclaves. 


He goes between the Elbe 
and the Oder. 


62 


812 


" the Saracens in 
Corsica. 




53 


813 


" Idem.* 





* Guizot's Lectures on the History of Civilization in France. 
Twentieth Lecture. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 49 

An analysis of this list gives the following 
results : — 

Against the barbarous tribes settled in central Europe, in- 
cluding Saxons, Huns, Avars, Sclaves, and Danes 31 

Against the Mohammedans of Spain, Italy, and the Mediterra- 
nean .*. 12 

Against the Lombards 5 

Against the Bretons and Aquitani 3 

Against the Greeks 2 

— % 
In aU 53 

From this list are omitted various unimportant 
expeditions incidentally alluded to, but of which 
no distinct record remains ; and those numerous 
intestine strifes among the Franks themselves, 
when the monarch had to repress anarchy, to 
punish disobedience, or to crush insurrection; 
yet we must bear these in mind if we would ade- 
quately estimate the ceaseless activity and indom- 
itable energy of Charlemagne. 

The characteristic peculiarities of the wars of 
Charlemagne become evident as we thus present 
the record in a tabulated form. They were not 
mere feuds, carried on by tribe against tribe, as 
the contests of his predecessors had been ; nor 
were they waged by nation against nation from 
motives of personal ambition and aggrandizement. 
They were, for the most part, directed against 
those hordes who had effected a settlement in the 
heart of Europe, who still continued as barbarous 
as their ancestors, and who, like them, were ready 
at any moment to pour down upon the more 
settled and peaceful districts, and in a moment 
undo all that had been done toward the establish- 
ment of civilization and order. They were vir^ 



50 LIFE AND TIMES 

tually defensive wars, waged for the protection of 
the inseparably associated interests of civilization 
and Christianity, against the inroads of Mo- 
hammedan fanaticism on the one hand, and pagan 
barbarism on the other. This fact, together with 
the small advances in civilization which even the 
conquerors had made, form the best apology 
* which can be offered for the long and bloody 
campaigns in which Charlemagne was incessantly 
engaged. 

Whilst the Christian historian cannot but 
abhor the spirit and condemn the practice of 
war, yet candor compels us to confess that in 
manifold instances this terrible evil has been 
made to work out good results. God has made 
even the wrath of man to praise him, and the 
remainder of that wrath he has restrained. Thus 
the wars of Charlemagne, thou'gh bloody in their 
course, and disastrous in their immediate in- 
fluence, did yet, under God^s overruling pro- 
vidence, work out the following beneficial results 
for Europe : 

1. They at once and permanently prevented 
any further barbarian inroad. Up to the time 
of Charlemagne, on the outskirts of the old 
Roman empire, and even within its boundaries, 
were vast wandering hordes of barbarians, only 
waiting some opportunity to follow in the path 
marked out by their ancestors, and precipitate 
themselves like an avalanche on the peaceful 
and settled provinces. Charlemagne, by his 
victories, erected a barrier against any future 
inroads. He compelled the Arabs^ the Saxons, 



OF CHARLEMAGNE 51 

the HunS; and the Lombards^ to remain within 
their own limits^ and attempt no more expedi 
tions into the territories of their peaceful neigh- 
bors. He thus gave to the nations of Europe 
those two grand requisites to all progress — 
peace and security. 

2. The victories of Charlemagne compelled 
the conquered barbarians themselves to cultivate 
the arts of peace. They had previously held 
all industrial pursuits in contempt. They lived 
solely for war and the chase. But when forced 
to abandon their predatory habits, and remain 
quietly within their own boundaries, they began 
to devote themselves to the pursuits of peace 
and civilization. Thus, Saxony, which through 
an entire generation was year after year laid 
waste by fire and sword, its towns being pillaged 
and burned, while its inhabitants were borne 
off into captivity, or ruthlessly put to the sword, 
very soon repaired these ravages after it began 
to enjoy the blessings- of national repose and 
tranquil industry. It speedily ceased to be a 
region of barren heaths, impassable morasses, 
and dense forests, inhabited only by wild beasts, 
and men scarcely less ferocious. Before a cen- 
tury had passed away, it had outstripped France 
in the race of improvement, and surpassed it in 
wealth and plecty. Nor was the progress of 
the Saxons and other conquered tribes confined 
to mere material civilization. In the higher 
concerns of morals and religion, they advanced 
with at least equal strides. However reluctant 
they were to receive Christianity^ yet having 



52 LIFE AND TIMES 

accepted it, tliej, like tlieir bretliren in England^ 
submitted much more fully to its influence than 
those nations whose conversion, using that term 
in the qualified sense before explained, had been 
more speed};^ and more superficial. We have a 
pleasing illustration of this in the religious 
literature which at once sprang up among theui. 
Numerous hymns and religious poems were com- 
posed in their vernacular tongue. At least two 
poetical versions of the Gospels were made; and 
it seems probable that, in addition to these, there 
was a metrical paraphrase of the whole Bible, 
since we read that "Louis commanded a certain 
Saxon, who was deemed by his own nation to 
be no ignoble bard,"^ to attempt a poetical version 
of the Old and New Testament in the German 
language, so that the inspired records and Divine 
precepts might lie open, not to the learned only, 
but also to the unlearned. He, gladly com- 
plying with the command, at once addressed 
himself to the arduous task. Beginning with 
the creation of the world, and compendiously 
summing up whatever was most excellent in the 

^ ^'•Haud ignohilis vates.'^ Among the Teutonic na- 
tions, 

" The sacred name 
Of poet and of prophet was the same." 
TJie Druid and the Bard were identical. We may hence 
conclude that this "vates" was a converted priest of 
the old mythology, and that these Christian songs were 
written by him to supersede the pagan chants which 
we know to have been previously in use, and of which 
relics yet remain in many of our popular legends and 
nursery rhymes 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 53 

history^ and dexterously introducing its spiritual 
meaning, lie completed a poetical version of the 
irliole Bible, distinguished alike by grace and 
' eloquence/^ Happy bad it been for Europe and 
for the world if this zeal for the translation and 
diffusion of the Scriptures had always prevailed ! 
3. These wars and victories fused down into 
national unity those heterogeneous mixtures of 
tribes and races who peopled the same districts 
without amalgamating with one another. For 
four hundred years, hordes of barbarians, differing 
in origin, manners, and language, had been poured 
into southern and central Europe. From the 
remote north, where our Scandinavian ancestors 
saw the sun set for a long night of months, 
from the steppes of Tartary, from the borders 
of China, impelled by some strange impulse, 
they pressed onward, those in the rear crowding 
upon those in advance, and forbidding them to 
retreat, though decimated by the swords of the 
legions, and the yet more fatal luxuries of the 
south. Each of these hordes, though thinned, 
and many of them almost annihilated, left some 
vestiges of their former countless numbers scat- 
tered over the face of Europe, and dwelling side 
by side with the relics of the old Eomaia pop- 
ulation; just as a fertile district, swept over by 
successive floods, retains at once the traces of 
its former fertility, and the debris deposited by 
each inundation. These various races had done 
little or nothing towards amalgamation. Each 
retained its distinctive manners, customs, laws, and 
language. The inhabitants of neighboring, and 



54 LIFE AND TIMES 

even of the same villages, were often unable to 
understand one another's language; and that 
which was regarded as sacred by one family, 
was looked on with detestation by the next. 
Hence arose incessant intestine feuds, race con- 
tending with race in wild disorder. They needed 
to be fused down into national unity, when the 
product, like Corinthian brass, would be all the 
richer from the variety and diversity of its con- 
stituent elements. This the wars and victories of 
Charlemagne effected, to a considerable extent, 
both for the conquerors and the conquered. The 
great enterprises in which they were engaged, and 
the important interests at stake, led both parties, 
for the time at least, to merge their differences : 
fidelity to their chiefs and to one another, in the 
camp and on the field, formed a bond of union 
which previously had no existence. Europe 
ceasing to be the battle-field and hunting-ground 
of hostile or loosely associated tribes, became the 
home of distinct and well-compacted nations, as 
we see it at the present day. 

Thus, then, notwithstanding the frightful de- 
vastation and carnage which attended many of the 
campaigns of Charlemagne, their ultimate results 
were in these respects greatly and decidedly ben- 
eficial.' Like the thunderstorm, which may scathe 
and blast the mountain side, and leave traces of 
its desolating progress in blighted verdure and 
shivered homesteads, but whose continuance is as 
brief as it is violent, while it is followed by greener 
verdure and brighter skies — so did the storm and 
fury of the Carlovingian wars pass away, having 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 55 

carried oiF many of tlie elements of disorder^ and 
prepared for the calm and genial influences of 
peace in after ages. 

In making these admissions, we need not, in 
the slightest degree, abate our abhorrence of war, 
but only discover another indication of God in 
history — only see another proof that verily there 
is a " Grod that judgeth in the earth,^^ who permits 
partial evil that from it he may elicit greater 
good, and who, from the fierce and selfish pas- 
sions of barbarous wars, works out his designs of 
benevolence and love. May he long preserve us 
from a recurrence of those wars of cruelty and 
ambition which have been at once the scourge 
and disgrace of Christendom, and hasten the 
dawning of that blissful day, when men ^^ shall 
beat their swords into ploughshares, and their 
spears into pruning hooks ;'^ when ^^ nation shall 
not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they 
learn war any more.^^ By the peaceful labours 
of the missionary in New Zealand and similar 
localities, the world has had a lesscJn taught to it, 
that there is ^^a more excellent way'^ than the 
eword to mitigate the ferociousness of savage 
tribes, and proof has been afi'orded that the gos- 
pel faithfully dispensed carries with it a healing 
and assuaging influence, more potent in its results 
than even the victorious arms of Charlemagne. 



56 LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER III. 

CHARLEMAGNE AS A LEGISLATOR. 

Necessity of guarding against the errors suggested by the names 
we use in historical investigations — State of the law on the acces- 
sion of Charlemagne — His determination to reform it — The legis- 
lative assembly — The reorganization of the Champs de Mai — Its 
character, constitution, and labors — The legislation — Its hetero- 
geneous character — Moral precepts — Penal enactments — The 
Wehr — The ordeal and judicial combat — The law of the sanctuary 
— Ecclesiastical legislation — Provides for the formation of an edu- 
cated ministry, and insists upon the faithful preaching of the 
gospel — Influence of Alcuin on this part of his legislation — Social 
legislation — Inquiry into the merits of this code — Administration 
and execution of the laws — Judicial activity of Charlemagne him- 
self — Governor's provinces — Elevation of ecclesiastics to these 
posts — Motives and results of this — Missi Dominiei — Report of 
Theodulf and Leidrade on the administration of law in the 
provinces — Copies of instructions given to Missi — Characteristic 
peculiarities and merits of the legislative system of Charlemagne. 

The tyranny exercised over us, and the illusions 
practiced upon us by the words which we use, 
have been remarked by many writers. '' "VYe 
suppose,^' says Bacon, ^^ that we command and 
control our words, whereas it not unfrequently 
happens that they command and control us.^' 
We use a word to describe some object, and it 
serves our purpose exactly and precisely. When 
we wish to speak of something which is similar, 
but not identical, we are compelled, from the 
poverty of language and the paucity of words, to 
apply to it the same name, to speak of it in the 
same terms. It is impossible for us so to multi- 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 57 

ply words as to define precisely our various shades 
of meaning. Hence arises a fruitful source of 
fallacy and mistake ; for by using the same names 
in speaking of various objects, their points of 
similarity only are brought before the mind^ whilst 
their points of difference are left out of sight and 
are apt to be forgotten.^' 

In nothing is this more true than in historical 
investigations. We emplqy some phrase to de- 
scribe a distinct and definite idea or institution of 
our own times. When we wish to speak of the 
ideas and institutions of past ages^ and of other 
states of society, we are compelled to use the same 
terms, though we are describing something very 
different. Thus we speak of monarchy, a king, 
the kingly power ; and by this we in the present 
day mean a fixed and settled government, adminis- 
tered by an individual whose authority is fortified 
by prerogative and restrained within constitutional 
limits, these mutual prerogatives and limitations 
being strictly defined and recognized both by the 
ruler and the subjects. When we speak of gov- 
ernment and legislation among the Franks, we 
are compelled to employ the same terms, and in 
transferring the words we can scarcely avoid trans- 
ferring with them their present meaning. But 
the words king and monarchy expressed very dif- 
ferent ideas and very different facts then and now. 
There was nothing in existence among the Franks 
analogous to what we, in the present day, mean 
by those names. The royal power was little more 
than a military chieftainship. In the rare inter- 
vals of peace, the monarch's authority depended^ 



58 LIFE AND TIMES 

not on any prescriptive and admitted right, but on 
his own personal character and influence, varying 
with these from absolute despotism to utter pow- 
erlessness. The imbecility of the predecessors of 
Pepin had reduced the royal power to its lowe-st 
possible point, all the functions of government 
had fallen into disorder, and anarchy prevailed in 
every department of the state. The language of 
a modern historian is scarcely exaggerated, who 
says: ^^ The monarchy was left without any regu- 
lar establishment of justice, of arms, or of reve- 
nue. The successors of Clovis wanted resolution 
to assume and strength to exercise the legislative 
or executive powers. Among the people, the love 
of freedom was reduced to a contempt of order 
and the desire of impunity.^ ^ This description 
is amply borne out by the words of Gregory of 
Tours : •' No one any longer fears or respects his 
king, his chief, or his count. Each man loves to 
do evil, and freely indulges his desires. The most 
gentle correction provokes an immediate tumult, 
and the magistrate who presumes to censure or 
restrain his subjects seldom escapes from them 
alive.^^ 

Whilst the executive functions of the govern- 
ment had become thus disorganized, its legislation 
was in a condition scarcely less anarchical. Char- 
lemagne on his accession to the throne, found the 
Franks as little disposed to acknowledge his au- 
thority to enact laws, as they were to yield obe- 
dience to the magistrates in the execution of them. 
The legislative assembly common to the Franks 
with the other Germanic nations, had fallen into 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 59 

disuse since their settlement in Gaul, and no other 
political institution had taken its place. As a 
consequence of this^ neither the king nor any one 
else was regarded as having authority to make 
laws binding on the nation. Nor was this all. 
Each tribe as it settled in Gaul had transplanted 
thither its own code, which it retained unaltered, 
though its enactments were utterly unsuited to its 
new mode of life, and at variance with the usages 
of its neighbors. At least five such contradictory 
and inconsistent codes are known to have been in 
operation in France at the same time, namely, the 
Salic, the Ripuarian, the Gothic, the Burgundian, 
and the Roman. '^ So great is the diversity of 
the laws,^^ writes Agobard, ^Hhat not only does 
it exist in the same province, or in the same city,- 
but even in the same household. For* it often 
happens, that if five men meet on a journey, or 
in a house, no one of them has a law in common 
with the others.''^ Nor did the confusion stop 
even here. Most of these codes being handed 
down by tradition, or reduced to writing in dif- 
ferent places at different times, the various enact- 
ments of each became so corrupted and altered, 
that the copies of professedly the same law dif- 
fered as widely from one another, as they did from 
those of other nations. 

It was to a government thus anarchical that 
Charlemagne succeeded. It will therefore be- 
hoove us to be on our guard against the error 
into which so many historical inquirers have 
fallen, of being deceived by the ambiguities of 
language, and thus being led to measure his 



60 LIFE AND TIMES 

policy by rules only applicable to times like our 
own. 

The repression of sucb universal anarchy, and 
reconstruction of society when so utterly disor- 
ganized, raight have seemed a hopeless enterprise 
even to one who could devote to the task the un- 
interrupted energies of a lifetime. What, then, 
must we think of the prodigious energy of him 
who, spending his whole mature life in the camp, 
yet attempted this and succeeded ? In tracing 
out the career of Charlemagne as a lawgiver, our 
" best and simplest course will be — first to describe 
the legislative body of his times, and its mode of 
procedure ; secondly, to give some account of the 
legislation itself; and thirdly, to consider the 
execution and administration of the laws which 
it enacted. 

The legislative council consisted of that annual 
muster of the Frankish warriors to which frequent 
reference has been made in the preceding chap- 
ters, and seems to have been the source from 
which the representative institutions of modern 
Europe originated. In their native forests, as 
we learn from Tacitus, all the German tribes had 
such assemblies, where all matters of importance 
were discussed and decided upon. The whole of 
the warriors assembled fully armed ; the chiefs 
only, however, had the privilege of speaking ; the 
others expressing their assent or dissent to what 
was said by shouts, and by striking their swords 
upon their shields. Very soon after the settle- 
ment of the Franks in Gaul, this assembly lost 
much of its deliberative and legislative character, 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 61 

and came to be merely a military muster at the 
opening of eacli campaign. Its original time of 
meeting was in the early part of March^ and was 
accompanied with various superstitious and idola- 
trous rites, which continued to be practiced after 
the nominal conversion of the nation to Chris- 
tianity, and even down to the time of Pepin. On 
the coronation of that monarch by Boniface, the 
latter induced the Franks to abandon these relics 
of their old paganism as unbecoming a Christian 
people ; and that he might do away with the idola- 
trous associations arising out of the period of the 
year, caused the time of meeting to be changed 
from March to May. As the assembly met in 
the open air, it was called from that circumstance, 
as well as from the month in which it assembled, 
the Champ de Mar^, or de Mai. 

Charlemagne perceived, that if he could restore 
the Champ de Mai from the neglect into which 
it had fallen, it would be exactly adapted to his 
purpose as a deliberative council. Within a few 
months of his accession to the throne, therefore, 
(in May, 769,) he ordered that it should meet 
regularly twice every year, and that all persons 
should attend or be fined for absence. A very 
interesting description of its constitution and mode 
of procedure was drawn up by Hincmar, arch- 
bishop of Rheims, in the year 882, for the guid- 
ance of Carloman, son of Louis the Stammerer. 
The following account of the character and con- 
stitution of this assembly, as it was organized by 
Charlemagne, is for the most part condensed from 
the narrative of the prelate just named. Two 



DZ LIFE AND TIMES 

councils ' met every year, the time and place of 
their meeting being determined by the emperor. 
The spot fixed upon was generally some spacious 
plain where the whole army might assemble. If 
the weather proved favorable, the deliberations 
were conducted in the open air: if unfavorable, 
temporary buildings were erected for the purpose. 
Though the entire nation had the privilege of 
being present, yet, as in the ancient times, the 
chiefs only consulted. The place assigned for 
the meeting of the chiefs was'* divided into two 
parts, one of which was occupied by the eccle- 
siastical, the other by the secular and military 
leaders, so that each could meet and discuss their 
affairs without the presence of the other. They 
might, however, deliberate in common if they 
chose, and they very frequently did so. The 
king did not meet with them unless they specially 
wished it, but held his court at a little distance, 
hearing reports from his envoys as to the admin- 
istration of the laws, the state of the provinces, 
the condition of the royal domains, inquiring into 
the disposition of the tribes on the frontier, re- 
ceiving ambassadors from foreign courts, and 
mingling freely and familiarly with all classes. 
Not only were the people permitted to come and 
speak to the king without reserve, but they were 
strictly enjoined to do so, and tell him any thing 
which they had observed of importance either 
within or without the kingdom. In particular, 
the king wished to be informed, whether in any 
part of the kingdom the people murmured, and 
were discontented, and if sO; from what cause; 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 63 

Whether any of tlie subdued nations gave signs of 
insubordination^ whether any of those who had pre- 
viously done so now seemed disposed to submit^ or 
whether any of the independent tribes were threat- 
ening to attack any part of his dominions. These 
things his people were recommended to learn from 
friends and foes alike, and freely to communicate 
whatever they could gather. Though the king, as 
we have just said, was not present in the assemblies 
except when special circumstances rendered his 
presence desirable, he still controlled and regu- 
lated all that passed there, for messengers were 
continually going to and fro between himself and 
the council, communicating to the chiefs the 
matters on which the king wished their advice, 
and carrying back to him their opinions when 
they had sufficiently considered the questions 
proposed to them. The result of their delibera- 
tions having been laid before the great prince, he 
then, with the wisdom which G-od gave him, 
adopted a resolution which all obeyed. 

Every thing thus emanated from the king, and 
was determined by him. Charlemagne himself 
fills the scene; he is the centre and soul of all 
things ; it is he who says that the assemblies shall 
meet, and that they shall deliberate; it is he who 
occupies himself with the state of the country, 
who proposes and sanctions laws; in him reside 
the energy and impulse of the legislature; it is 
from him that all things emanate, and to him that 
all things return. ''' 

■^Guizot's Lectures on the History of Civilization in 
France. Lect. xx. 



61 LIFE AND TIMES 

The places at wliicli the assemblies were sum- 
monecl to meet afford a very striking illustration of 
Charlemagne's ceaseless activity. Amongst those 
enumerated by his chroniclers we find Worms, 
Valenciennes, Greneva, Ehresburg, the sources of 
the Lippe, Ratisbon, Frankfort, and Boulogne. 
Not only are these places widely distant from one 
another, but many of them are in the very heart 
of the Saxon territory, and most of them in dis- 
tricts where, at the time of meeting, military 
operations were being carried on. 

Such being the constitution and character of 
the legislative body, we proceed to a consideration 
of the legislation itself. This it is proposed to 
treat of at some length, because, though of less 
general interest than many other parts of the 
history of the period, yet nothing else gives us so 
adequate an idea of the character of the age, and 
so accurate an acquaintance with the disposition 
and feelings of the subject of our sketch. The 
monarch will be found expressing, in his own 
words, his judgment of the men and things of his 
time. As in the clear waters of a lake we see in 
a single glance the weeds and pebbles of the lake 
itself, together with the shadows of the surround- 
ing banks and trees, so in the laws of Charle- 
magne we perceive distinctly reflected the mind 
of the man and the manners of the age. 

In attempting to give an account of the legis- 
lative labors of this illustrious individual within 
the narrow limits of this volume, much difliculty 
arises from their vast extent and extremely mis- 
cellaneous character. The limits of governmental 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 65 

control were unmarked. It was supposed that 
the king must regulate every thing, must provide 
for every things must legislate upon every case that 
arose. Hence the private conduct of individuals, 
the manner in which they should worship God, 
the mode in which they should manage their 
affairs, their morals, their religion, their agricul- 
ture, their commerce, all come within the range 
of the monarch's legislative diligence. And 
hence, though the larger portion of the proceed- 
ings of the assemblies has been lost to us, yet no 
fewer than 1150 distinct capitula* have come 
down to our times as relics and proofs of the 
prodigious activity and energy of this extraordi- 
nary man. This, while it renders any clear or 
complete classification impossible, yet greatly in- 
creases their value as a picture of the age. 
Adopting, with some modifications, the arrange- 
ment of M. Gruizot, we shall first give some ex- 
amples of those moral precepts which, in a strict 
sense, cannot be called laws, but rather counsel 
and advice; we shall then consider Charlemagne's 
penal, ecclesiastical, and social legislation. 

Of the first class — moral counsels and precepts 
— the following will afibrd fair specimens : — 

" It is necessary that every man should, to the 
best of his ability and strength, endeavor to serve 
God and walk in the way of his commandments, 
for the lord emperor cannot watch over every 

•^So called from capitulum, "a little chapter/' as they 
consist of detached decrees or judgments, very brief, 
and each pi:oviding for a single case.' A collection of 
capitula is called a capitulary. 

8 



66 LIFE AND TIMES 

person with the necessaiy care, and keep every 
person in his proper place/' (Capitulary of the 
year 802.) 

^^ Avarice consists in desiring the possessions of 
others, and in not being willing to give to others 
a share of what we ourselves possess. According 
to the apostle, it is the root of all evil. It should 
therefore be most carefully guarded against." 
(806.) 

These enactments clearly show that the idea 
present to the legislator's mind was that he was 
responsible for the personal morality and private 
conduct of each individual. 

Similar in spirit to the foregoing are the two 
following: — ^^Let all men practice hospitality. '^ 
"Those who are determined to become rich are 
likely to make dishonorable gains.'' ("89, 
794.) • 

^^Let more attention be paid to the promotion 
of religion than to the decoration of churches; 
for although it is a good thing that churches 
should be beautiful edifices, yet virtue forms their 
best crown and ornament. It seems to us that 
the building of handsome churches pertains rather 
to the old dispensation, while the improvement of 
the character and life is the more peculiar work 
of the New Testament and the Christian dispen- 
sation." (Capitulary of the year 811.) 

^^ There are certain persons so superstitious that 
they appeal to sorcerers and conjurers, and are 
particular about the days and times, and hang 
amulets and spells about their necks. We do 
not know what scriptural warrant they have for 



I 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 67 

acting thus/^ ^^Wh<atever a man does, let Mm 
do it in the name of the Lord/' (^14.) 

Such exhortations as these are very frequent. 
Many similar will appear under the head of eccle- 
siastical legislation. While they show the sound 
vigorous sense of the emperor and his councillors, 
they yet indicate clearly enough how very con- 
fused and imperfect were their ideas of the 
province of the legislator, and the limits within 
which he can act. 

We pass on to a consideration of the penal 
legislation of Charlemagne. Against this a charge 
of cruelty has been brought. The only part of 
it which lies open to this reproach consists of the 
laws by which death is denounced as the penalty 
to those Saxons who refuse to receive baptism, or 
who relapse into idolatry after it. That these 
enactments were of a cruel, and almost of a fero- 
cious character, it would be vain to deny. They 
ought properly to be considered, however, not as 
the legislation of a monarch for his own subjects, 
but that of a commander at the head of an army 
dictating terms to a defeated enemy. The en- 
actment in question formed part, not of his civil, 
but of his martial law; and the capital punish- 
ments which they denounced were only military 
executions in another form. We may therefore 
omit all reference to these capitula, as not coming 
within the scope of the present chapter. 

The other parts of his penal laws are not 
characterized by any undue severity, but rather 
by an aversion to inflict death. He appears to 
have revised the various discordant codes of laws 



b5 LIFE AND TIMES 

to wHcli reference was previously made^ to have 
reduced them to something like uniformity, and 
in general to have mitigated their severity.* 
Charlemagne was especially anxious to diminish 
the extreme rigor of the punishments inflicted 
upon the serfs and slaves^ and to protect them 
from the capricious cruelty of their masters. Of 
this the three following enactments will afford 
proof: — ^^Let no lord take away his land from 
any vassal without just cause, and at the mere 
impulse of anger.^' " Whoever holds a fief under 
us must take as much care as he can, that by God's 
help none of his slaves shall perish from hunger. 
And let him not sell the produce of his soil till 
he has first of all provided for their sustenance. ^^ 
'^ A man suborned a slave, and induced him to 
kill his two young masters, aged, the one nine, 
the other eleven, and then killed the slave himself 
and threw him into a ditch. Adjudged that the 
man should pay a wehrgeld for the boy of nine, 
a double wehrgeld for the boy of eleven, a treble 
wehrgeld for the slave, and morever undergo our 
ban.^'^ 

This adjudication is instructive, not only as 
illustrating the atrocious crimes of the age, and 
the determination of the emperor to repress them, 

■^In this part of Charlemagne's conduct the reader 
may trace another point of parallel between his pro- 
ceedings and those of Napoleon at a later period. The 
latter digested the conflicting laws of France, fusing 
them into his one "Code Napoleon;" a peaceful trophy 
of his genius, more durable, perhaps, than his military 
fame. 



OP CHARLEMAGNE. 69 

and to protect the life even of a slave, but as 
bringing before us the principle common to all 
laws of his time and race^ of levying a pecuniary 
fine upon the offender rather than inflicting a 
bodily punishment. As this is one of the most 
important and characteristic features in the penal 
laws in the Teutonic nations, it may be well to 
describe it somewhat fully. 

We learn from Tacitus, that in these tribes 
offences against the community, such as treason 
or. cowardice, were punished with death; the 
offender being generally thrown into a morass, 
and a hurdle being placed upon him. '^ When 
the offence, however, was committed against an 
individual or a family, a fine of horses or cattle 
was imposed, part of which went to the person 
injured, or, if he were killed, to his family, and 
part to the magistrate. The amount of the fine 
varied with the circumstances of the case, and 
was assessed in proportion to the rank of the 
culprit and of the injured party, the nature of the 
injury, the place where it was committed, as well 
as the relation in which the parties stood to one 
another. The utmost ingenuity was displayed in 
determining the amount of fine which the various 
combinations of circumstances required. The 
injury done to a woman was to be compensated 
by a fine twice the amount of that inflicted for 
the same injury done to a man. The Anglo- 
Saxon code fixed the wehrgeld of a king at 30,000 



*^"The remains of these malefactors are sometimes 
found in the marshes of Germany at the present day. 



70 LIFE AND TIMES 

thrismas, of a prince at 15^000, of a bishop or 
alderman at 8,000, of a sheriff at 4,000, of a 
ceorle at 266.* The Salic code, which formed 
the basis of the legislation of Charlemagne^ im- 
posed a fine of 600 solidi for the murder of a noble 
of the first rank, 300 for that of a noble of the 
second rank, and 200 for an ordinary Frank.*}* 
But these amounts were modified by the mode in 
which the murder was committed, whether by a 
weapon, or by strangling, or by drowning; whether 
in the party^s own house, or in a church, or in the 
fields; by a stranger, or a friend, or a relative. 
The same principle was carried out, and the same 
minute distinctions made in legislating for minor 
injuries The eye, the ear, the hand, the foot, 
each finger, and toe, and tooth, had its special 
value. The nature of the wound is minutely 
described ; if it drew blood, the depth of the cut 
and the quantity of blood which flowed; if it 
caused blackness only, the extent of the black 
mark; if a bone were splintered, the piece of bone 
which came out was thrown into a shield, and the 
distance at which it could be heard falling deter- 
mined the price to be paid. If from a wound in 

^ The deodand formerly le\ded by the coroner seems 
a relic of this. The word "damages," as used for tlie 
pecuniary fine levied by a court of justice, has probably 
the same origin. Our phrase, ''What is he worth?" 
meaning, How much money has he? is conjectured to 
originate from the wehrt or money value of the indi- 
vidual in the eye of the law. 

fThe solidus was of the nominal value of 7^. 8Jc?., 
equal to £4. 25. lid. of the present British money. The 
nominal value of the thrisma was S^d. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 71 

the head three pieces of bone came out, the fine 
was 45 solidi; if the wound would not heal, but 
kept open, 62 solidi, and 9 to the doctor. He 
who called another a one-eyed fellow must pay 15 
solidi; if he called him a pig, 3 solidi; the same 
if he called him a fox, and twice as much if he 
called him a hare. 

Up to the time of Charlemagne, it seems to 
have been left to the option of the injured persons 
whether they would accept the legal composition 
or seek revenge by private means. This was 
productive of endless feuds, which, as among the 
Arabs of our own day, were handed down from 
father to son with constantly increasing bitterness; 
vengeance on one side only provoked retaliation 
on the other, and thus resentment became fixed 
and implacable. Charlemagne endeavored to check 
this evil by making the payment of the legal fine 
compulsory on the part of the offender, and 
its acceptance imperative on the injured party. 
He enacted in the year 802, ^^When any person 
has been guilty of any wrong or outrage, he shall 
immediately submit to the penance imposed, and 
offer to pay the fine prescribed by law; if the 
injured persons or their kindred should refuse to 
accept this, and presume to avenge themselves by 
force of arms, their lands and properties shall be 
forfeited. '' In this affair, as in many others, 
Charlemagne was in advance of his age. While 
he lived, indeed, he compelled obedience, but after 
his decease the pursuit of personal and private 
revenge became as common as ever, and continued 
to be so for many centuries, 



/^ LIFE AND TIMES 

Another peculiar and characteristic feature 
of the criminal process of our Teutonic ancestors 
in those semi-barbarous ages, and which was re- 
garded with much favor by Charlemagne, was the 
judgment of God, as it was called, in its twofold 
form of ordeal and trial by battle. The belief 
was universal that God when appealed to would 
interfere, and suspend the laws of nature so as to 
enable the innocent person to walk on red-hot 
iron, or to plunge a limb into molten lead without 
injury; that he would, on the other hand, make 
the most harmless and simple things fatal to 
the guilty wretch who dared to invoke the Divine 
justice; that in judicial combat he would endow 
the weaker person, if innocent, with supernatural 
energy, and smite the guilty with impotence or 
paralyze him with terror. The assertion of a great 
English poet, that 

" Thrice is lie armed that hath his quarrel just," 

was thus with them no figurative expression. 

A law of the year 809 enacts, that ^^ all persons 
shall receive without hesitation or doubt the judg- 
ment of God.^^ In the same year a man who 
was charged with murder was required to attest 
his innocence by walking barefoot over nine red-hot 
ploughshares. During the earlier years of Char- 
lemagne^s reign a dispute arose between the bishop 
of Paris and the abbot of St. Denys, as to the 
proprietorship of the estates of a small abbey, 
each claiming them for himself. Unable to de- 
cide this question of right, they agreed to refer it 
to the judgment of God. Each party chose a 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 73 

champion^ wlio was to stand before tlie liigli altar 
during the celebration of mass with his arms out- 
stretched in the form of a cross. He who first 
became weary and altered his position was ad- 
judged to have lost the cause. 

We smile at the superstition and puerility of 
such modes of deciding questions of truth and 
right. But let us pause before we too harshly 
condemn them. They sprang out of a principle 
true in itself^ though superstitious and false in this 
application of it, that *^ verily there is a God that 
judgeth in the earth/^ and that there is a Divine 
superintendence over the affairs of men to which 
all nature ministers. And though we fully admit 
that the principle as applied by our ancestors was 
erroneous and superstitious, yet surely even this 
error is preferable to that atheistic reasoning so 
much in vogue in the present day, which would 
exclude Providence from all interference with 
human affairs, deny to Grod the prerogative of 
ruling and controlling the creatures he had formed, 
and reduce Divine agency to the inevitable and 
unswerving operations of natural law. 

Whilst the theory of the trial by ordeal is thus 
excusable, though not entirely justifiable, its ope- 
ration, we may observe, was not so injurious as 
has been supposed. Originally it was intended 
only to be applied to the decision of cases which 
were so complicated and obscure as to baflSe the 
investigations of rude and simple warriors, who, 
unused to sift evidence and to balance probabili- 
ties, constantly found themselves unable to decide 
between opposite and conflicting testimonies. 



74 LIFE AND TIMES 

What more natural than that, under such circura- 
stanceSj they should refer the case to the decision 
of Him who could neither err nor deceive ? Nor 
was the detection of crime an unfrequent occur- 
rence. The guilty person shrank from a resort 
to that unerring tribunal. He might succeed in 
baffling the inquiries of his fellow-men, but he 
feared to appeal to infallible wisdom, immutable 
and incorruptible justice, and Almighty vengeance. 
In innumerable instances, he preferred to pay the 
penalty imposed by human law rather than incur 
such fearful peril. "^^ While we maintain that the 
trial by ordeal was thus, at least, excusable in its 
first intention and design, it must be admitted 
that, in after ages, it became an instrument of 
priestcraft and fraud. 

The trial by battle, which in modern times has 
excited even more sarcasm and derision than the 
ordeal, admits of a still better justification. It 
seems to have been originally resorted to only 
when the injured party refused to accept the pe- 
cuniary compensation, of which we have spoken, 
and insisted upon his right to personal revenge. 
The judge then in effect said : ^^ Since you insist 
upon revenging yourself personally upon your ene- 
my, you must do so; it is your undoubted right, 
and if you demand it, it must be conceded ; but 

* A strong argument for a special and presiding Provi- 
dence may be deduced from the universality of trial by 
ordeal. Every known nation of oriental, classical, or me- 
diseval antiquity, affords instances of its use. Surely 
a practice so common must have rested upon a principle 
fundamentally true. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 75 

you shall do it under certaiu restrictions and limit- 
ations wMch shall give the other party a fair and 
equal chance with yourself, and it shSl be in the 
presence of judges and witnesses, and accompa- 
nied with such solemnities as shall render the act 
not one of lawless violence^ but shall give it a ju- 
dicial character/' 

The trial by battle, then, was partly of the na- 
ture of an ordeal, and partly designed to act as a 
limitation and restraint upon the practice of pri- 
vate vengeance.* The unlimited condemnation 
with which many modern writers have spoken of 
these semi-judicial processes, has arisen from esti- 
mating them by a comparison with the more per- 
fect and reasonable modes now adopted for the 
detection and punishment of crime, instead of 
comparing them with the anarchy and confusion of 
the preceding ages, from which they afforded the 
best, and perhaps indeed, the only means of es- 
cape. Charlemagne and his fellow-legislators had 
not to consider what was best absolutely, but what 
was best under the circumstances. To have at- 
tempted the establishment of a judicial process 
like that which it is our privilege to enjoy, and to 
have made this imperative in all cases, would have 
been to attempt an impossibility, and, by aiming 
at too much, nothing would have been effected. 

Let those who indulge in such derisive condem- 
nation of the legislation of those times remem- 
ber, too, that the duel has scarcely ceased among 

* For further illustration and confirmation of these 
views, see the very able disquisitions of Robertson and 
Guizot on this subject in their respective histories. 



76 LIFE AND TIMES 

ourselves, and tliat enlightened and professedly 
Cliristian nations still attempt to decide questions 
of right by an appeal to arms. 

These remarks will to some extent apply to the 
places of sanctuary, which existed in the time of 
Charlemagne, and which he did not attempt to 
suppress, but only to regulate. It is admitted, 
that ultimately they became insufferable nuisances, 
and that when the arm of the law gained strength 
enough to defend the innocent, they were fitly and 
necessarily swept away. But in those ages of 
brutal violence and lawless force, ^^ when life and 
when female honor were exposed to daily risk from 
tyrants and marauders, it was better that the pre- 
cincts of a shrine should be regarded with an 
irrational awe, than that there should be no re- 
fuge inaccessible to cruelty and licentiousness '^* 
It was no small advantage to have some place to 
which helpless innocence might flee, mid where 
the slave might find a refuge from the vengeance 
of his feudal tyrant. Since the law was too weak 
to defend the oppressed, their only refuge was in 
the inviolable protection of the sanctuary of God. 
To have invaded this, would have been to vio- 
late the last and sole resort of the friendless and 
forlorn. Charlemagne, therefore, preserved the 
right of sanctuary undisturbed, and only en- 
deavored to guard it from abuse. It was enacted, 
that ^^ if any person convicted of a capital offence 
should take refuge in a church he should not be 
supplied with food, that thus he might be com- 



^Macaulay's "History of England," chap. I. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 77 

pelled to surrender himself to justice/^ The 
privilege of affording sanctuary to fugitives was at 
the same time limited to churches, and no longer 
permitted to be enjoyed in the royal palaces. ^^ We 
will and order/^ says a capitulary of the year 800, 
^^ that none of those who serve in our palace take 
upon himself to receive any person who seeks 
refuge there, and comes to conceal himself from 
justice. If any man violate our prohibition and 
receive' a malefactor into our palace, he shall be 
forced to take him upon his shoulders, carry him 
to the place of punishment, and be attached t( 
the same post as the offender. ^^ 

These penal enactments indicate an advance 
upon the anarchy of preceding ages, and deserve 
praise as tending to repress it. Still, what an 
amount of violence and social disorder do they 
show to have been still existing in a state of 
society which tolerated them, and how inadequate 
were they to check or punish crime ! It is 
impossible to contrast the state of things thus 
presented to us with the almost perfect security 
against the lawless force afforded in the present 
day, and the nearly inevitable punishment which 
sooner or later overtakes the wrong doer, without 
beholding grounds for deep gratitude to God, who 
has ordained a government that ^' bears not the 
sword in vain,^' but is a terror to evil doers, and 
^^a praise to them that do well.'^ 

The next branch of the legislation of Charle- 
magne to be considered by us is the ecclesiastical. 
Adequately to estimate it, we must bear in mind 
that Home, though far less corrupt than she after- 



78 LIFE AND TIMES 

wards became, had even then entered upon that 
career of aggression upon the prerogatives of 
rulers, the liberties of nations, the consciences of 
individuals, and the rights of God, which have 
rendered her influence so disastrous to all who 
have been subject to it. She had already begun 
to elevate her priesthood into a position hostile 
alike to liberty and true religion, and had adopted 
many of those baleful superstitions, whose main 
object was and is to enhance her own power, and 
to replenish her coffers with ^Hhe merchandize of 
the souls of men/^ 

To all such fatal superstitions, insolent preten- 
sions, and priestly exactions, Charlemagne was a 
zealous and determined opponent, as the following 
capitula will show. 

At a council held at Chalons, in the year 813, 
in order to check the growing indolence and 
power of the monastic orders, it was decreed : — 
^^ There are priests who lead an idle life, and 
trust thereby to be purified from sin, and to fulfil 
the duties of their vocation; and there are laymen 
who believe that they may sin, or that they have 
sinned with impunity because they undertake 
such and such pilgrimages; there are great men 
who, under the pretence of religion, practice ex- 
tortion upon the poor; and there are poor who 
employ the same pretexts to render begging more 
profitable. Such are those who wander about and 
declare that they are on a pilgrimage; while there 
are others whose folly is so great, that they believe 
the mere sight of or dwelling in the holy places 
will purify them from sin, forgetting the words 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 79 

of St. Jerome, who says, that there is nothing 
meritorious at Jerusalem but the leading a good 
life there.'' 

Again, in order to repress the evils which had 
even then become rife in the confessional, it was 
enacted, that ^*we must confess our sins to God, 
who alone has power to forgive sin, according 
to the thirty-first Psalm, and we must pray to him 
for salvation. It is by this confession to Grod 
that a man becomes purified; by confession to a 
priest he only learns the means proper for him to 
adopt to gain purification. Let not penance be 
estimated by the length of time spent in it, but 
by the intensity of contrition and self-mortifica- 
tion, for it is the contrite heart and the humble 
spirit which Grod will not despise.' ' 

So, too, it was decreed : — " Let not a man hope 
to gain forgiveness by donations to the priest or 
alms to the poor. Those who act thus seem to 
think that they can bribe God to let them sin 
with impunity. If Divine justice could be thus 
satisfied, Christ would not hs.ve said that the rich 
would find most difficulty in entering the kingdom 
of heaven.'' 

In the diet held at Aix la Chapelle, in the year 
811, the following instructions were issued to the 
Missi Dominiti:^ — ^^Interrogate the bishops 
and abbots closely on the meaning of the words 
of the apostle, ^No man that warreth entangleth 
himself with the affairs of this life.' Inquire 
from them to whom these words apply. Desire 



^ A kind of royal commissioner. 



80 LIFE AND TIMES 

them to tell us plainly what is the meaDing of the 
words always in their mouth, 'Ilenounce the 
world/ and by what signs we may distinguish 
those who do renounce the world. Is it merely 
that they do not bear arms or marry publicly? 
Ask them fui*ther, whether he is to be considered 
as having renounced the world whom we see daily, 
by all sorts of means, laboring to increase hi§ pos- 
sessions, sometimes employing threats of eternal 
flames, sometimes promises of everlasting blessed- 
ness; in the name of God, or of some saint, de- 
spoiling simple men of their property, to the in- 
finite prejudice of the lawful heirs, who are often 
driven by poverty into crime/' 

To repress the military habits of the prelates 
it was decreed : — ^' Henceforth let no priest engage 
in war, but let two or three chosen bishops attend 
the army, with a certain number of priests, to 
administer the rites of religion. What victory 
can be hoped for when the priests are at one hour 
administering the eucharist to Christians, and at 
the next slaying with their own wicked hands 
those who had received it, and to whom they 
ought to have been preaching Christ ?'' 

While he thus endeavored to cheek the rapacity, 
violence, and sloth of the clergy, he at the same 
time boldly protested against the superstitious 
practices they were introducing, as the following 
enactment will show: — ^^Let no man suppose 
that God is to be prayed to in three languages* 

■^Probably the Greek, Latin, and German. The 
Romish Church has since that time still further restricted 
the language of prayer to one of these. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 81 

only, for Grod may be prayed to in every language, 
and man is heard in them if he ask just things/' 
(A. D. 794.) " Let care be taken not to venerate 
the memory of doubtful martyrs or of false saints. 
Let no chapels be dedicated to the honor of such.^' 
(A.D. 789.) 

Charlemagne, in his ecclesiastical legislation, 
did not rest satisfied with endeavoring to repress 
what was wrong; he addressed himself with equal 
wisdom and energy to the more difficult task of 
fitting the priesthood of his day for the discharge 
of their arduous and responsible duties. Espe- 
cially did he seek to prompt them to a more dili- 
gent and efficient ministry of the word. This 
was the more important, as the Romish Church 
had begun to regard religion as a mere round of 
ceremonial observances, and to teach that the 
sacraments were efficacious in procuring salvation 
apart from the state of feeling of the commu- 
nicant. Hence it was deemed sufficient for the 
priest to recite the words of the service, though 
both himself and his hearers were ignorant of 
their meaning; and to perform the prescribed 
rite, though insensible to its spiritual import and 
significance. As a consequence of this reliance 
upon the mere words or ceremonies of religious 
services, the office of preaching became either 
altogether neglected, or so negligently performed 
as to be almost useless. Such is the inevitable 
consequence of the doctrine of sacramental salva- 
tion. By making religion consist in something 
else than the intelligent reception of the truth by 
faith, it puts into the back-ground that preaching 



bZ LIFE AND TIMES 

of the cross which seems -Ho men foolishness/' 
but which is still the means by which ^'it hath 
pleased God to save them that believe/' It is by 
no external ordinance^ whether of human or Di- 
vine institution, that the sinner is saved. We 
are ^^ justified by faith/' and '^ faith cometh by 
hearing, and hearing by the word of God." It 
is not by the utterance of certain mystical and ill 
understood words to the ear, nor the performance 
of a ceremonial, however dazzling or solemn, to 
the eye, but the intelligent appreciation and be- 
lieving reception of spiritual truth, that the great 
ends of the gospel and the Church are to be at- 
tained. 

This the clear and vigorous mind of Charle- 
magne distinctly perceived. He therefore required 
that '' every priest should be able not only to re- 
cite the offices of devotion, but to expound them 
in plain and common language." The synod of 
Cloveshove enacted, that ^' the priest, at Jiis ordi- 
nation, should be made to translate into the vulgar 
tongue of the people among whom he ministered, 
the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the forms for 
the administration of baptism and the Lord's 
supper, and to explain them in the same ; and 
that the priest should seek to understand the 
spiritual meaning of all the services and rites, so 
as not to be a dumb and senseless instrument 
while praying to God for the sins of the people, 
and exercising that ministry by which they were 
to attain everlasting life." In this enactment we 
have a striking illustration of the ignorance of 
the clergy in that day, since so little was required 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 83 

of tTiem as necessary to tlie due discharge of their 
office. 

In order to render the above and similar decrees 
effective, it was ordered that ^^ schools should be 
eatablished for the purpose of giving instruction 
in general learning, but most especially in the 
exposition of the Scriptures; that thus a minis- 
try might be trained up, of whom Christ would 
indeed say, ' Ye are the salt of the earth : ye are 
the lights of the world/ ^' 

Whilst means were employed to train and edu- 
cate the religious teachers of the people, the 
practical duties of their office were kept steadily 
before them. One capitulary says, ^^Let preach- 
ing be always performed in such a manner that 
the common people may be able to understand it 
thoroughly.'^ The rules laid down by Chrode- 
gang, bishop of Mentz, for the regulation of the 
clergy of his diocese, were adopted by the empe- 
ror, and issued under his sanction and authority. 
They ordered that '' the word of salvation should 
be preached at least twice in every month, and, 
whenever possible, on every Sabbath and festival, 
and this must be done in such a way that all may 
understand it. Let the bishops, too, in their visi- 
tations of their dioceses, preach to the people 
whenever they have the opportunity, for the ad- 
vantage of those who rarely hear the word of 
God.'' The bishops*and clergy were likewise or- 
dered ^^ to provide persons who could preach ro 
the people in a fit and intelligible manner when- 
ever they were absent from their charges." An- 
other clause provides that these enactments take 



84 LIFE AND TIMES 

effect, not in the towns only, but also in villages 
and country places. 

In carrying out tliese decrees into practical 
fulfilment, there was a very important difficulty 
to be met and provided for. We have seen that 
the clergy were so ignorant and illiterate that a 
special law was needed requiring them to be able 
to expound the simplest forms of the Church, and 
this was the utmost that could be demanded from 
them. How then, could they be expected to 
preach adequately and intelligently ? To meet 
this case a new Homilarium, or Sermon Book, 
was ordered to be prepared, the one already in 
existence being very defective, and, in many re- 
spects, objectionable. The preparation of this 
volume was entrusted to Paul Warnefried, (or 
Paulus Diaconus, as he is often styled,) under 
the superintendence of Alcuin and the emperor 
himself. 

The royal ordinance appointing these homilies 
to be read in the churches, affords an interesting 
illustration of the feelings of Charlemagne in the 
matter. It is among the capitularies of the year 
788. 

'^ Charles, by the aid of God, king of the Franks 
and Lombards, and prince of the Romans, to the 
ministers of religion throughout our dominions : 
Having it very near our heart that the state of 
the churches should more a#id more advance to- 
ward perfection, and being desirous of restoring, 
by assiduous care, the cultivation of letters, which 
have almost entirely diappeared from among us, 
in consequence of the neglect of our ancestors; 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 85 

we would excite by our own example all well- 
disposed persons to the study of the liberal arts. 
To this purpose we have already, by God's con- 
stant help, accurately corrected the books of the 
Old and New Testament^ which had become cor- 
rupted by the ignorance of copyists. We could 
not endure that among the sacred lessons in the 
worship of God there should constantly occur 
discordant and ungrammatical errors; and we 
therefore conceived the design of reforming these 
lessons. We entrusted this work to our servant 
Paul. We commanded him to go diligently 
through the writings of the fathers, and culling 
thence the finest and most useful passages, to 
blend them, as it were, into a fragrant and bene- 
ficial garland. Eager to obey our command, he 
reperused the writings of the orthodox fathers, 
and, selecting the best of these, has presented to 
us, in two volumes, a series of divine discourses 
adapted to every day in the year. We have ex- 
amined these volumes, and find them worthy of 
our sanction. We therefore transmit them to you 
to be read in the churches under your care.^^ 

The bishops were subsequently enjoined to 
have this Homilarium translated, with the utmost 
plainness and simplicity, into the various dialects 
of the districts under their charge, '' so that all 
persgns might be able easily to understand the 
things which were said.'^ This compilation con- 
tinued in common use in Germany till the close 
of the fifteenth century. 

These extracts may sufiice to give some idea of 
the ecclesiastical legislation of this extraordinary 



86 LIFE AND TIMES 

man. It is impossible to read even tliese brief 
quotations from it without perceiving that a clear 
conviction was present to his mind that civiliza- 
tion and good order were to be promoted^ and 
that anarchy and barbarism were to be repressed 
only by the influences of Christianity — and that 
Christianity was to be promoted only by the pro- 
mulgation of the truths of the gospel. It is due, 
however, to the illustrious Englishman, Alcuin, 
who was the most trusted counsellor and friend of 
the emperor, to say, that much of this ecclesias- 
tical policy was the result of his influence. Even 
when Charlemagne sought to diffuse Christianity 
by other means, as, for instance, when he at-^ 
tempted to convert the Saxons at the sword's point, 
this faithful adviser thus counselled his royal mas- 
ter: — ^^Let your majesty cease from uttering 
threats, and abandon violence. Send missionaries, 
not soldiers — missionaries not bent upon enriching 
themselves, but who shall count it ^ more blessed 
to give than to receive.^ Men are to be attracted 
to the faith, not forced into it. You may compel 
them to receive baptism, but without faith this is 
useless. Let your majesty therefore provide 
preachers, upright in conduct, thoroughly conver- 
sant with religious truth, imbued with the Divine 
precepts, and intent upon following the example 
set before us in God's word. Let them feed tlieir 
converts with sound doctrines and mild precepts, 
as an infant is fed with milk, since they are but 
babes in Christ. And let especially care be taken 
that the preaching of God's word go together with 
the administration of the sacraments^ for the 



OP CHARLEMAGNE. 87 

washing of tlie body in baptism will profit notliing 
to the convert unless it have been preceded by an 
acknowledgment of the truth/^ Happy the mon- 
arch who has such a counsellor; and happy the 
nation whose prince listens to such advice I 

From Charlemagne's ecclesiastical we pass on 
to his social legislation. And here, first in im- 
portance, come his enactments for the diffusion of 
education. We have already seen how zealous 
he was to promote sacred learning among his 
clergy: we have now to speak of his efforts to 
spread general knowledge among all classes. 

A royal ordinance, issued to the bishops and 
abbots of his dominions, in the year 787, will 
perhaps illustrate his feelings on this subject : — 
''We beg to inform your devotion to God, that, 
in concert with our councillors, we have deemed 
it beneficial that, in the bishoprics and monaste- 
ries confided to our care by God, we should see 
to it, not only that persons live piously and ac- 
cording to our holy religion, but that, moreover, 
they should give instruction in the knowledge of 
literature to all who, by God's help, are able and 
willing to learn. For though, of the two, it w 
better to be good than to be learned, yet to have 
learning leads to being good. In the various let- 
ters addressed to us we have remarked that, whilst 
the sentiments are for the most part excellent, yet 
the language in which they are expressed is often 
rude and illiterate; so that the fine thougbts 
which piety dictates, an unskilful and uneducated 
tongue mutilates in the delivery. This inspires 
us with the apprehension lest the same ignorance 



88 LIFE AND TIMES 

sliould keep them from a due understanding of 
the Scriptures. It is at all events certain that the 
language of the sacred writings will be better un- 
derstood by those who are likewise versed in 
general learning. We therefore would have you 
select from among your brethren those who are 
fitted, first for learning themselves, and then for 
teaching others ) and let such at once proceed to 
their work of instruction with the least possible 
delay. As you value our favor, take care to com- 
municate this decree to all the bishops and monas- 
teries in your neighborhood immediately/^ 

Among the schools thus established, those of 
Tours, Lyons, Orleans, Rheims, Fulda, Old and 
New Corvey, Reichenau, and St. Gall, became 
especially famous, and laid the foundations of 
important universities in after years. The studies 
pursued in these places were divided into two 
classes, the Trivia and the Quadrivia, which 
together made up the seven liberal arts. The 
Trivia* consisted of grammar, logic, and rhetoric; 
the Quadrivia, of music, arithmetic, geography, 
and astronomy. Within these narrow boundaries 
was then contained the whole sum of human 
knowledge. Yet poor and, as far as practical 
utility went, of little worth as this learjiing was, 
it was a mighty advance upon the utter ignorance 
of the preceding generations. Mental activity, 
however ill directed, and though barren of imme- 
diate results, is immensely better than absolute 

"^ Hence probably our word trivial — the trivia being 
tlie simplest rudiments taught on entering school. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 89 

stagnation and inaction. The movement of mind 
thus excited by Charlemagne never entirely 
ceased. With intervals of collapse^ with alter- 
nate progress and retrogression, there was still 
motion, and^ on the whole, advance; till the 
glorious era of the Reformation came, when the 
mind of Europe, bursting its fetters, and shaking 
off the sloth of ages, came forth from its dark 
prison-house, and asserted and vindicated its 
inalienable right to knowledge, and its determina- 
tion to possess it. In reference to recent efforts 
to disseminate doctrines which would bring us 
back again to an age of ignorance, the words of 
Milton may be appropriately employed : — 'K)h ! 
let them not bring about their accursed designs, 
who now stand at the entrance of the bottomless 
pit, expecting the watchward to open^ and let out 
those dreadful locusts and scorpions, to reinvolve 
us in that pitchy cloud of infernal darkness, where 
we shall never more see the sun of Thy truth 
again, never hope for the cheerful dawn, never 
more hear the bird of morning sing.'^ * 

Of scarcely less importance than his educa- 
tional legislation are those enactments by which 
Charlemagne endeavored to regulate the relations 
between husband and wife, parents and children. 
The prime requisite for a well-ordered state is 
unquestionably a well-ordered family. It is the 
basis on which society rests; it lies at the founda- 
tion of the whole social fabric. If the family 
bond be weak, that which unites society cannot be 

■^ Milton on the Reformation in England. 



90 LIFE AND TIMES 

strong. Respect for authority and reverence for 
law can only be produced by a habit of parental 
control on the one hand, and of filial obedience 
on the other. All history proves that the family 
is the school in which the subjects of the state 
are trained and disciplined. Hence the import- 
ance of that part of his legislation which Charle- 
magne, treading in the steps of his father Pepin, 
entered upon in relation to this subject. Mar- 
riage had previously been contracted almost 
without any formality; and had been dissolved 
without scruple, at the bidding merely of passion 
or capT-ice. Woman thus became a slave, kept to 
gratify her master's lust; man lost all that civiliz- 
ing and refining influence which female society 
was designed to have upon him; and the children 
grew up without that parental control which was 
needed to curb the license of youth and to fit for 
the duties of manhood. To repress these evils, 
Charlemagne rendered the marriage tie binding 
and permanent, only permitting divorce within 
the limits and under the circumstances assigned 
by the canon law. He at the same time made 
marriage a religious rite, investing it with the 
solemn and sacred character of an act performed 
in the Divince presence and under Divine au- 
thority. 

In all social legislation the poor must have 
place, for ^Hhe poor have ye always with you.'' 
A law for the suppression of mendicity, and the 
establishment of what was equivalent to our poor- 
rate, now unexpectedly appears. In the year 806 
it was decreed that, ^^with regard to vagrant 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 9 J 

mendicants, we order that each of our subjects 
support his own poor, either on his farm or in his 
house, and not allow them to go elsewhere to beg. 
If such beggars are found, and they do no work, 
let no man think of giving them any thing/^ A 
law, similar in spirit to this, has been previously 
quoted, in which he enjoined that the produce of 
the farm should not be sold till the serfs upon it 
had first been provided for. Charlemagne was 
specially severe on those begging ascetics who, 
like the fakirs of India and the dervises of Turkey, 
assumed the religious garb, that thus they might 
the more successfully appeal to the charity of the 
industrious and devout. He strictly forbids their 
^^ wandering about half naked, laden with chains, 
and inflicting tortures upon themselves. If they 
have indeed committed sins, it is better that they 
should remain in one place and work for their 
living.^^ 

That these enactments against mendicants were 
not dictated by any unkindness towards the poor, 
seems proved by many edicts already quoted in 
their favor. That he was most anxious to protect 
them from the oppression of the rich and powerful, 
is decisively shown by a law which attempts to 
fix the maximum price at which food should be 
sold. "The most pious king has decreed, that 
no man, whether he be clergyman or layman, 
shall, either in seasons of plenty or scarcity, sell 
provisions at a dearer rate than that recently fixed 
by the bushel. If he wishes to sell his produce 
in loaves, he shall give twelve of wheat, fifteen of 
rye, twenty of barley, or twenty-five of oatS; each 



92 LIFE AND TIMES 

loaf of two pounds' weight, for one denier/'* 
However inefficacious all such attempts to fix a 
maximum price must necessarily prove, (a truth, 
however, only recently discovered,) yet they 
evince the interest which Charlemagne took in 
the welfare of the poorer classes, on whose behalf 
alone such an enactment was passed. 

It would be unfair to judge of his commercial 
legislation by this single edict. For the most part 
it was wise, judicious, and based upon sound 
policy. Its character and results are thus summed 
up by Menzel. ^^Notwithstanding the disinclina- 
tion of the Germans for commerce, he attempted 
to encourage its pursuit by granting extraordinary 
privileges to merchants, f The Jews, who, after 
the destruction of Jerusalem, had been carried 
away captive by the Romans, and scattered over 
the face of the earth, had, since Rome had fallen 
under the dominion of. Germ any, busied them- 
selves exclusively with commerce; and Charle- 
magne, uninfluenced by the prejudices of his 
subjects, granted them every privilege demanded 
by humanity and consistent with the welfare of 
his state. Travelling merchants were protected by 
severe laws. Commercial treaties and alliances were 
formed with the nations, and new markets open to 
foreign traders, were organized in the interior.'' 

■^ The denier contained, in the time of Charlemagne, 
twenty-eight grains of fine silver. 

•j- A similiar spirit was displayed in the Anglo-Saxon 
laws. By an edict of Athelstane, a merchant who had 
crossed the seas three times was raised to the rank and 
privileges of a Franklin, 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. Uo 

It would be easy to multiply sucli extracts from 
the legislation of Charlemagne almost indefinitely. 
Thosie already furnished^ however, will suffice to 
give an idea of its general character and of the 
spirit which dictated it. To some it may seem a 
heterogeneous mass. There are no general prin- 
ciples announced, no great theory of government 
developed and acted upon. Each special case was 
provided for as it arose by a special enactment. 
This, however, was inevitable. The time was not 
come for theorizing. Rulers in a stage of civili- 
zation, just emerging from barbarism, and liable 
at any moment to fall back again into it, have 
neither the capacity nor the desire to generalize 
or form theories of government. They are too 
glad to hit upon some expedient wBich will meet 
and provide for the particular exigency, to trouble 
themselves with abstract inquiries into its con- 
sistency with the true principles of government. 
When grappling with impending anarchy, they 
must legislate for the moment, and leave it to 
after ages to systematize their laws. Looked at 
in this light, we cannot but feel that Charlemagne, 
as a lawgiver, merits all the praise he has received. 
Taking into account the circumstances of the 
times, we cannol but wonder at the vigorous sense, 
the manly independence, and the clear judgment, 
which his legislation everywhere evinces. That 
there should be errors was inevitable, for it was 
the darkest period of the dark ages, and the legis- 
lator was an illiterate warrior, presiding over an 
assembly of warriors more illiterate than himself. 
That some superstitions should be countenanced 



94 LIFE AND TIMES 

was equally inevitable, for the Komisli Church, 
the only one which Charlemagne knew, was al- 
ready very far gone in her apostasy. But is it 
not marvellous that the errors should be so few, 
and that, in spite of the corruptions of Rome, so 
much pure scriptural truth should be asserted? 

Having considered the legislative assembly and 
the legislation of Charlemagne, we have now to 
give some account of the administration and exe- 
cution of the laws. Plere, again, the emperor 
himself occupies the most prominent position. 
As his was the mind that planned, the will that 
determined, and the authority that decreed the 
laws, so, too, his was the hand that enforced them. 
He was not only legislator, but judge. Eginhardt 
says, that h^ was constantly travelling, and his 
travels, though undertaken for some military or 
political purpose, were always, in addition to their 
primary object, a protracted court of assize. 
Everywhere he inquired into the operation and 
administration of the laws, correcting what was 
amiss, and commending what he approved. Every 
morning, as soon as he arose, suitors were ad- 
mitted into his bed-chamber to communicate to 
him cases of difficulty, which the ordinary minis- 
ters of justice had failed to decide, and he held a 
court of appeal as he dressed. 

But active as he was, and carefully as he econo- 
mized his time, it is evident that it would be 
utterly impossible for him to discharge all the ju- 
dicial functions of so vast an empire, especially 
among a people so addicted to acts of lawless 
violence as were his subjects. He therefore ap- 



OF CHARLEMAGNE 95 

pointed in every district officers to act in his name 
and under his authority. These may be divided 
into two classes, the regular and the occasional. 
The former were resident governors to whom a 
province was assigned, in which they were to ad- 
minister the laws, and for the good order of which 
they were responsible to the king. The only pe- 
culiarity in this part of his government was, the 
preference he displayed for ecclesiastics over secu- 
lar or military nobles. He constantly displaced 
the latter for the former, and this especially in 
the conquered districts. The reason for this 
preference was twofold. First, because the clergy, 
though ignorant in comparison with the attain- 
ments of our age, were yet very far in advance of 
the laity of their own day. They had at least 
some tincture of learning, and those whom he 
patronized and elevated were, for the most part, 
men who had distinguished themselves by dili- 
gence and progress in study at their respective 
schools. The ecclesiastics were, moreover, from 
their very position and profession, favorable to the 
promotion of civilization and the maintenance of 
peace — qualities rarely to be found among the 
rude secular nobles, whose only business was war, 
and whose only pastime was the chase. But he 
had a second motive : he believed that he should 
find his priestly functionaries less ambitious, less 
anxious for personal aggrandizement, less desirous 
to erect their dioceses into independent principali- 
ties, than others.* Little did he know how dan- 

■^ William of Malmesbury writes: — "Charles the 
Great, in order that he might check the ferocity of the 



90 LIFE AND TIMES 

gerous a thing it is to employ religion as a politi- 
cal engine, and to withdraw the Church from the 
performance of its spiritual functions by imposing 
upon it secular offices and honors. ^' Who made 
me a judge or a divider over you V^ is a question 
which it behooves the Church to take up and re- 
iterate from the lips of its Divine Master. Whilst 
Charlemagne lived his vigorous government kept 
his ecclesiastical officials in check, they continued 
submissive to his bidding, and the only evils which 
resulted from their appointment was, that they 
were withdrawn from the sacred duties of their 
own holy office. Scarcely was he dead, however, 
when Rome began to put in practice her invariable 
policy of making religious pretensions the path to 
temporal aggrandizement. The garb of humility 
and spirituality, which the bishops had worn to 
cloak their ambitious designs during the lifetime 
of the great monarch, were then stripped off, and 
the rights of their king and the liberties of their 
fellow-subjects were shamelessly trampled under 
foot. They declared their independence of all 
regal authority and restraint. They erected their 
dioceses into independent principalities. Their 
cathedrals were changed into strongholds filled 
with armed men, rivalling in strength and wicked- 
ness the castles of the feudal chiefs. Hence 

people, placed ecclesiastics over almost all the provinces, 
considering tliat men in sacred ofi&ces would be less dis- 
posed than others to rebel or shake off their allegiance ; 
and that if laymen should attempt this under their gov- 
ernment, they would be able to keep them in check by 
their spiritual terrors." 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 97 

sprang those prince-bisliops who wrought such 
fearful mischiefs throughout Germany in the suc- 
ceeding century. Another fact is thus added to 
the demonstration afforded by all history of the 
truth, that whatever may be the professions of the 
Romish Church, or whatever its conduct when 
under restraint, its real designs are secular ag- 
grandizement, tyranny, and usurpation. 

In order to superintend and control these stated 
and regular officers of his government, Charle- 
magne employed others, whose duties were but 
occasional and temporary, and who were called 
Missi Dominici. They were despatched as am- 
bassadors into the provinces in order to investigate 
the whole state of their affairs. Their duties 
were most multifarious. They included the su- 
perintendence of the conduct of the governors, 
the administration of the laws, the raising of 
troops and taxes, the disposition of the people, 
the competency of the clergy, the good order of 
the schools, and the management of the royal 
farms. On all these matters they had to report 
to the emperor, both as to the evils they found 
existing, and the measures they adopted to check 
them. 

Of the need which existed for these Missi, or 
Commissioners, and of the mode in which they dis- 
charged the duties of their office, we have an il- 
lustration in the narrative given by Theodulf, 
bishop of Orleans, and Leidrade, bishop of Lyons, 
who had been appointed specially to investigate 
and reform the maladministration of the law in 
the southern provinces. According to the fashion 
4 



98 LIFE AXD TIMES 

of the times, they make tlieir report in a very 
florid and verbose poem of nearly a thousand lines. 
The following condensed extract will give an idea 
of the whole : — ^' A large crowd pressed around 
us of both sexes and of every age. The entire 
people promise us gifts^ and think that by offering 
bribes whatever they ask is as good as done. 
Here one offered me crystals and precious stones 
from the east if I would make him master of the 
domains of another; a second offered gold and 
silver if I would put him in possession of lands he 
coveted; a third described a most exquisitely 
chased antique vase, a masterpiece of art, saying, 
^ I will give you this if you will grant my wishes. 
There are a great number of men and women, 
young persons and children, of both sexes, to 
whom my father and mother gave a charter of 
emancipation; let us alter or cancel this charter, 
and I shall enjoy the possession of these slaves 
and you of this costly vase.' Another offered 
beautiful clothes and costly cups, saying, ^ 3Iy 
father left a well-watered estate, covered with 
vineyards, olive groves, meadows, and gardens, 
and my brothers and sisters claim their share, but 
I wish to possess it without partition. Give what 
I wish, and accept what I offer.' The poor are 
no less urgent in their bribeiy than the rich 
Some bring pieces of cloth, others napkins, others 
boxes, and one with a look of triumph, as though 
sure of success, brought some little candles made 
of wax. Thus all persons sought to bribe us. 
Oh I wicked pest I Oh ! corruption, which spreads 
itself universally ! Nowhere is there wanting 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 99 

people who give and who take wrongfully. Tliev 
would not have expected thus to corrupt us with 
gifts had they not found these means successful with 
our predecessors. No one seeks wild boars in the 
water, or fish in the forests, or water in the fire. 
They expect every thing where they have been 
accustomed to find it.'^ The indignant virtue of 
the good bishops did not, however, prevent them 
from accepting some of the presents which were 
ofi'ered. They represent that to have refused to do 
so would have excited too much astonishment from 
its novelty. ^^ We accepted with thanks the little 
presents made to us by the hand of friendship, 
such as fruit, vegetables, eggs, wine, bread, and 
hay. We took likewise some young fowls and 
some birds, smaller in size, but very good to eat. 
Happy the virtue which is tempered, adorned, and 
maintained by discretion, the nurse of all virtues. '^ 
Some of the instinietions given to the Missi 
are very curious, as illustrations of the emperor's 
perfect acquaintance with, and personal surveil- 
lance, over the minutest affairs of his widely 
extended government. For instance, '^ Remem- 
ber to order that they who send us horses as 
presents, inscribe their names on each horse, and 
so too with the robes sent from the abbeys.'^ 
'' Recollect to order that whenever official persons 
either do evil or suffer it to be done, they be ex- 
pelled from their offices and be replaced by others 
of better character.^^ ^^ Inquire how it is, that 
whenever any thing of importance has to be done 
on the frontiers or in the army, one man will not 
help another to do it.'' " What is the meaning 



100 LIFE AND TIMES 

of these constant lawsuits of wMcli I hear be- 
tween neighbors ? No man seems contented with 
what he possesses^ but is striving to wrest pro- 
perty from those who live near him/^ 

Still more curious are the instructions given to 
them as to the management of the royal farms. 
The breeding of horses^ the sale of eggs^ the 
rearing of poultry, are all regulated by orders 
given by the king. Suspecting that there is 
speculation in one department, he orders that an 
exact account be sent to him of the horns and 
skins of the goats which were killed, and how 
much they were sold for. The larger farms are 
to maintain one hundred hens and thirty geese, 
the smaller fifty hens and twelve geese.* 

The emperor thus possessed absolute and entire 
control over all the officers of his vast dominions. 
Whilst he showed himself equal to the greatest 
and most trying emergehcies, he yet stooped to 
the minutest details. Alike in the enactment 
and the execution of the laws, he was head and 
chief. The great national assembly, as we have 
seen, only possessed deliberative authority, could 
only act in the way of counsel and advice. The 
laws all originated in, and were determined by 
him. The officers employed to carry out the laws 
were simply his agents and representatives. 
They held office during his pleasure; they re- 
ceived from him the most precise directions as to 
their conduct, and rendered to him an account 
of all they saw and did. He, in fact, only mul- 

'^ Capitulary de Villu. 



or CHARLEMAGNE. 101 

tiplied his own energy and activity by the number 
of agents he employed. In all the affairs of 
that vast empire^ Charlemagne was every thing 
and everywhere. Though in the system which 
he established^ we may trace the germs of our 
modern representative institutions, yet it was an 
absolute autocracy, a paternal despotism. That 
it should be so was necessary under the circum- 
stances. The choice lay between such a system 
and anarchy. The age was not ripe for a consti- 
tutional monarchy. There needed a man of 
strong arm and resolute will to bend events to 
his own designs, or, if they would not bend, to 
crush them. Just such was Charlemagne. It is 
impossible to conceive of a ruler more perfectly 
adapted to the wants and necessities of his age 
than was he. When he appeared upon the sceae 
of action, all men instinctively turned to him as 
the one who alone could meet the exigencies of 
the times. This perfect and complete coinci- 
dence between its requirements and his character 
is only explicable on the assumption that there is 
an overruling Providence ordering our affairs, and 
raising up instrumentalities and agencies exactly 
fitted to accomplish its benignant designs. He 
who is " King of kings, and Lord of lords,'^ ^Hhe 
blessed and only Potentate,'' employs earth's 
mightiest rulers but as his creatures and servants 
to fulfil his august and gracious purposes toward 
a world steeped in ignorance, barbarism, and 
guilt. '' Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, 
to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden. to 
subdue nations before him : I will go before thee, 



102 LIFE AND TIMES 

and make the crooked places straight. . . . For 
Jacob my servant^s sake, and Israel mine elect, I 
have even called thee by thy name. I am the 
Lord, and there is none else, there is no God 
beside me : I girded thee, though thou hast not 
known me.'^ Isa. xlv. 1-5. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 103 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE RELATIONS OF CHARLEMAGNE WITH THE 
PAPACY. 

Distinction between the papacy as a creed and an organization — 
Favor with which it M^as regarded by Charlemagne nnder the 
latter aspect— Reasons for this — Interference of Pepin on belialf 
of the Pope — The forgery of a letter from the apostle Peter to the 
Franks — First visit of Charlemagne to Rome — His promises and 
reluctance to fulfil them — Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals — Protest 
of the clergy and laity of Italy against the papal pretensions — 
Charges against the Pope — His insatiable avarice — The debate on 
image worship — its unanimous rejection and condemnation by 
the Frank bishops — The Libri Carolini — The Adoption contro- 
versy — Elevation of Leo to the pontificate — Revolt of the Romans 
against him — Charlemagne visits Rome to quell the insurrection 
— Is there crowned and inaugurated as Emperor — Reflections on 
this narrative. 

Roman Catholicism consists of two elements, 
which, though always found in association, are 
yet perfectly distinct and easily distinguishable. 
It is a creed, and it is an organization — a system 
of doctrines, and an ecclesiastical corporation, 
whose head is at Rome, and whose members 
stretch themselves over the whole earth. 

Under the former of these aspects we have 
seen how Charlemagne regarded ifc, how resolute- 
ly he opposed its unscriptural rites and anti- 
scriptural doctrines, and how earnestly he sought 
to counteract the influences of its superstitious 
ritualism, by asserting the necessity of faith and 



104 LIFE AND TIMES 

prayer, and a personal acceptance of, and submis- 
sion to, tlie truths of the gospel. 

We have now to speak of the relations between 
the Emperor and the Papal Church under the 
latter of these aspects — as an organization or 
ecclesiastical corporation. However hostile he 
may have shown himself to the papal creed and 
ritual in those points in which they diverged 
from the Christianity inculcated by Christ and 
his apostles, he yet regarded the jpajpacy itself 
with considerable favor, and extended to it his 
patronage. 

The reasons which led him to feel and act thus 
are obvious. He felt it to be his special mission 
and work to defend and promote civilization, law, 
and order*; to rescue Europe from the anarchy 
and barbarism into which it was fast settling 
down ; and to diffuse and foster the arts of peace. 
The only body to which he could look for aid in 
this great task was the Komish Church. All the 
secular nobility, all the military chiefs, and the 
immense majority of freemen, not in his own em- 
pire only, but throughout central and western 
Europe, were disposed to side with the party of 
war rather than with the party of peace. All 
their habits of life and their modes of thought 
and feeling, made them hostile to the restraints 
of a powerful government, and led them to regard 
with contempt the sedentary engagements of art 
and literature. With the priesthood the case 
was different. They had every thing to lose and 
to suffer by a continuance of anarchy; every 
thing to gain by the reestablishment of order. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 105 

Always surrounded by violence^ and often attack- 
ed by it, their only defence was the moral power 
they could exert. To brute force they could 
simply oppose the influences of superior koow- 
ledge and religion, in their case aided by super- 
stitious terrors. From mere selfish considerations, 
and from personal interest, therefore, they were 
disposed to side with the emperor in his efforts to 
establish a strong central government, which 
could defend the weak against the strong. 

It would be injustice to the Church of that 
age to suppose that it advocated the cause of 
peace and civilization solely from interested mo- 
tives. Whatever zeal there existed for learning 
and for art was almost confined to the monks and 
clergy. Amongst them the light of knowlegde 
was not altogether extinguished. It burned, 
indeed, with a feeble and flickering flame — it 
was almost buried — but still it did burn. ^^ Ye 
are the light of the world,^^ was in one sense true 
of the Church in those chaotic ages ; since, dark 
as it was, the world was darker still. The com- 
mission to ^^ go and teach all nations,^' which has 
been the glory and duty of the Church ever since 
the ascension of its Divine Master, has never 
been entirely lost sight of. The fact that, in 
these latter days, Rome has shown herself the 
implacable foe of education, must not bhnd us 
to the fact, that Charlemagne could find aid in 
his educational projects only from the clergy. 
*' Whatever reproach,'^ says Mr. Macaulay, ^^may, 
at a later period, have been justly thrown on the 
indolence and luxury of the religious orders, yet, 



106 LIFE AND TIMES 

in that age of ignorance and violence^ fhey af- 
forded quiet cloisters and gardens in which the 
arts of peace could be safely cultivated ; in which 
gentle and contemplative natures could find an 
asylum ; in which one brother could employ him- 
self in transcribing the ^neid of Yirgil, and 
another in meditating the Analytic of Aristotle ; 
in which he who had a genius for art might illu- 
minate a martyrology or carve a crucifix ; and in 
which he who had a turn for natural philosophy 
might make experiments on the properties of 
plants and minerals. Had not such retreats 
been scattered here and there among the huts of 
a miserable peasantry, and the castles of a fero- 
cious aristocracy, European society would have 
consisted merely of beasts of burden and beasts 
of prey. The Church has many times been com- 
pared by divines to that ark of which we read in 
the book of G-enesis ; but never was the resem- 
blance more perfect than during that evil time 
when she alone rode, amidst darkness and tem- 
pests, on the deluge beneath which all the great 
works of ancient power and wisdom lay emt emb- 
ed, bearing within her that feeble germ from 
which a second and more glorious civilization was 
to spring. ^^ To the Church, then, Charlemagne 
was compelled to turn in his search for men who 
would or could cooperate with him in his great 
work. In bearing this testimony to the merits 
of the ecclesiastics of that age, it may be proper 
to remark, that no admirers of these times can 
point to the services of the clergy in preserving 
literature as a ground for the revival of mediaeval 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 107 

principles. It was because error liad not entirely 
overshadowed the Church that it still retained, in 
some degree, its character as a fosterer of letters. 
The age of true intellectual progress dates from 
the era of the Reformation. 

Charlemagne was still further influenced in the 
favor with which he regarded the Church by the 
conviction, which we have already seen to have 
been present to his mind both in his military and 
his legislative policy, that religion was the great 
agency for civilizing Europe. Into whatever errors 
men may have fallen in the application of this prin- 
ciple, all history proves that the principle itself is 
a sound and true one. In every country and clime, 
from the burning sands of Africa to the perpetual 
snows of Greenland; amongst the fierce tribes of 
ancient Scandinavia and the licentious indolence 
of Hindostan; where the Indian yells his war 
whoop, and where the Negro sinks down in 
squalid degradation, Christianity has proved the 
great means of refining and elevating those who 
were inaccessible to or proof against any other 
influence. Every form of political organization, 
of philosophic speculation, of philanthropic en- 
deavor, has been tried and has failed; but godliness 
has proved itself to be profitable for all things, 
having promise of the life that now is, as well as 
that which is to come. These motives, together 
with his own personal religious emotions, made 
Charlemagne favorably disposed towards the pa- 
pacy, and will explain much of his conduct with 
regard to that fallen and apostate Church, which 
would otherwise be inexplicable. We proceed to 



lOS LIFE AND TIMES 

trace out tlic history of liis counection and Inter- 
course with it. 

At the coronation of Pepin, as king of the 
Franks, the pope conferred upon him the office 
of patrician of Kome, thus putting that city under 
his government and protection. lie had, indeed, 
no right to confer this title. The act was a direct 
and daring violation of the authority of the em- 
peror of the east, whose subject he was. But as 
the Komish pontiff had resolved to throw off his 
allegiance to the old imperial power, he sought to 
effect his purpose by transferring it to the rising 
sovereignty of the Franks. That this office was 
to be no sinecure soon became evident, for Rome 
being attacked by the Lombards, Stephen, who 
was then pope, crossed the Alps to implore in 
person aid in defence of the city. lie was present 
at the Champ de Mai, in the year 754, and so 
eloquently pleaded his cause before the assembled 
warriors, that when he and his suite fell prostrate 
at the feet of the king, declaring that they would 
not rise till he promised to come to their succor, 
the whole people promptly flew to raise them from 
the earth, and though generally indisposed to such 
distant and unprofitable expeditions as that into 
Italy was likely to prove, they yet entered upon 
the campaign with great ardor. Aistolphus, the 
Lombard king, was speedily defeated, and com- 
pelled to surrender the districts he had overrun. 
To this territory, the pope had not the slightest 
shadow of a claim, nor^did he so much as pretend 
any. Tie was, indeed, proprietor of considerable 
landed estates, which had been bequeathed to him 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 109 

by the piety or superstition of preceding ages, but 
further right he had none. The district had been 
conquered by the Lombards, not from the pope, 
but from the Greek emperor. Pepin, however, 
having reconquered the territory, compelled Ais- 
tolphus to surrender it, not to its former and 
rightful sovereign, but ^Ho Grod and the holy 
Roman republic,^' in other words, to the pope. 
In vain did the emperor protest against this in- 
vasion of his rights, and the profanation and 
prostitution of the sacred name employed to 
justify it. Pepin replied, that he had acted for 
the glory of God and the salvation of his soul, 
and no earthly power should compel him to re- 
tract. 

This surrender of territory by the Lombards, 
however, was but nominal. As soon as Pepin 
had retired from Italy, Aistolphus again took 
possession of his former conquests. Stephen was, 
therefore, compelled once more to appeal to his 
new defenders and allies. His first request for 
aid had been made as a suppliant clad in sack- 
cloth, but now, finding that he had to do with a 
superstitious people, who regarded him as an al- 
most divine person, he changed his tone to that of 
threatening and command. In this he only acted 
upon the invariable policy of his Church through 
all ages. Where Home has dared, she has been 
insolent and defiant; when she has been firmly 
opposed, she has ever been crouching and servile. 
She has been the slave, the rebel, and the usurper, 
by turns; licking the dust beneath the feet of 
kings, or pluuging the dagger into their hearts. 



110 LIFE AND TIMES 

That tlie appeal now made might have greater 
urgency and force, it was presented in the name 
of the apostle Peter. The letter is a startling 
example of mingled arrogance and impiety. It 
is to the following effect: — '^1, Peter the apostle, 
who regard you as my adopted sons, exhort you 
to defend against the hands of my adversaries, 
and to pluck from their polluting touch, this Ro- 
man state and people, who were committed to me 
by God, and which is the home where I live after 
the flesh. I therefore admonish you to deliver 
the Church of Grod committed to me by Divine 
authority. Our lady, the virgin Mary, the mother 
of Grod, moreover, beseeches, admonishes, and 
commands you together with us — as likewise do 
the thrones, dominions, and all the hosts of heaven, 
and the holy martyrs and confessors, joining their, 
adjurations and entreaties with ours. Afford help, 
therefore, to the utmost of your power to my Ro- 
man people, so that I, Peter, the apostle of God, 
may afford defence to you both in this life and at 
the day of judgment; that I may prepare for you 
splendid mansions in the kingdom of God, and 
assign you eternal blessedness and the infinite de- 
lights of paradise. Be not separated from my 
Roman people, if you would not be separated 
from the kingdom of God and eternal life. For 
whatsoever ye shall ask from me I will succor you 
in. But should you prove unwilling, know tkat 
by the authority of the Holy Trinity committed 
to me by Christ the Lord, you, as the penalty of 
disobedience to our commands, shall be excluded 
fiom the kino;dom of God and immortal life." 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. Ill 

It lias been asserted tliat the pope, in writing 
thus, had no intention of passing off the letter as 
the veritable production of the apostle whose 
name it bears, and that the use of Peter's name 
is simply a rhetorical embellishment. But it is 
difficult to see how language could be made more 
explicit and" precise, or why the pontiff should 
have used such phraseology except in order to 
impose upon the credulity and superstition of 
those to whom it was addressed. The question 
whether he did or did not palm off the document 
as St. Peter's genuine letter is, however, one of 
very small consequence. If he did, he stands 
convicted before us of forgery and fraud. If he 
did not — if he wished it to be understood that 
the letter emanated from himself, and himself 
alone — what are we to think of the monstrous pride 
and profanity of the man, who could thus arro- 
gate to himself authority to deliver the souls of 
men, both now'and in the day of judgment, and 
to prepare heavenly mansions for all who were 
obedient to his commands? 

Pepin, thus adjured, came again to the relief of 
the Ilomans, and compelled Aistolphus to lay the 
keys of the conquered cities on the altar of St. Peter. 

On the death of Aistolphus, Dcsiderius suc- 
ceeded to the throne of the Lombards, and sub- 
sequently Charlemagne became sole monarch of 
the Franks. We have already spoken of the 
causes of quarrel between the two kings, the 
breaking out of war between them, and its result- 
ing in the entire destruction of the Lombard 
power. Toward the close of the campaign, De» 



112 LIFE AND TIMES 

siderius, having been completely defeated in the 
field, was compelled to shut himself up within 
the strongly fortified walls of Pavia. The city 
having been closely invested, and all the ap- 
proaches to it secured, Charlemagne left the prose- 
cution of the siege to his generals, and visited 
Rome. His approach and entrance combined the 
pomp and magnificence of an old Roman triumph 
with the sanctity of a religious ceremonial. At 
thirty miles distance from the city, the judges 
and senators met him, to offer him welcome and 
escort for the remainder of the journey. He 
reached Rome on Holy Saturday, 1st of April, 
774. Whilst yet a mile from the gates, the Fla- 
minian Way, by which he approached, was lined 
with G-reek, Saxon, Lombard, and Spanish youths, 
and at the same place the noblest families in Rome 
attended him, equipped in common armor. Others 
of tender years, together with the^young maidens 
of the city, strewed flowers in his way, chanting 
as they did so, ^^ Blessed is he that cometh in the 
name of the Lord.^' On meeting this triumphal 
procession, the king dismounted from his horse, 
" and with his retinue entered the city on foot. The 
pope, attended by his suffragan bishops, awaited 
his arrival at the entrance of the church of St. 
Peter, which they entered together, and knelt 
side by side at the altar. It was remarked, how- 
ever, that Charlemagne assumed the most honor- 
able position, walking at the right hand with the 
pope on his left.* This may seem trivial and un- 

* This resembles Napoleon's conduct when he met 
the pope. As the pontiff entered the carriage on one 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 113 

important^ but such trifles are of consequence, 
since they show that he undertook the defence of 
the city as its lord and ruler. 

Whether Charlemagne had any political object 
in view in making this visit we cannot now de- 
termine. The pope, however^ contrived to turn it 
to good account. He read to the young conqueror 
the grant of territory made by Pepin to the 
Churchy and urged him to imitate so pious an ex- 
ample. If we may believe the papal historians, a 
new grant was made, in which not ooly was the 
old one confirmed^ but the greater part of the 
newly conquered kingdom of Lombardy was 
added. 

It seems that when Charlemagne had returned 
to his own dominions, and escaped the seductions 
of the papal presence, he repented of the un- 
thinking generosity which had led him to give 
away so valuable a territory, and he evinced no 
little reluctance to sui*render it. The pope, there- 
fore, began to ply him with the most earnest 
entreaties and adjurations. He reminds him ^^how 
formidable a creditor St. Peter must be, who is 
prince of the apostles and doorkeeper of heaven.'^ 
^^ Truly good, mild, and excellent son, I implore, 
I entreat thee, to surrender that which thou dids;t 
promise to St. Peter, key -bearer of heaven, so that 
he may help and second thee with the Divine 
Majesty.^' These entreaties proving unavailing, 
the pope proceeded to urge the request by appeal- 
ing to the ambition of Charlemagne, who aspired 

side, Napoleon entered it by the door on the other, so 
that there might be no loss of dignity on cither side I 



114 LIFE AND TIMES 

to be regarded as successor of the old Koman em- 
perors. ^' As ia the times of the blessed poritiif 
ISylvester, the holy catholic and apostolic Church 
was elevated and honored by the most pious em- 
peror Constantine^ of holy memory, and by him 
deemed worthy to possess authority in these west- 
ern regions/ so also in these your most happy 
times, let the holy Church of God flourish- and 
stand exalted more and more/^ 

It is thus we hear for the first time of the 
famous donation of Constantino, by which, as was 
pretended, the city of Rome and the surrounding 
country, now known as the States of the Church, 
or the patrimony of St. Peter, were ceded in per- 
petual sovereignty to the bishop of Rome; From 
the very important influence which this pretended 
donation has had in the aggrandizement of the 
papacy, and from the apt illustration it presents 
of the dishonesty and fraud which so habitually 
characterize its proceedings, it will be desirable to 
give some account of this famous forgery. 

About the year 634, a collection of papal and 
imperial decrees on ecclesiastical matters was com- 
piled by Isidore of Seville. From the influential 
position and venerable character of the author, 
this collection, known as- the Decretals of St. Isi- 
dore,* was held in high esteem. During the reign 

''^' It was usual to add the word peccator, that is, sin- 
ner, after the name as a mark of humility. In the later 
and interpolated editions, peccator became corrupted 
into mercator, that is, merchant. An apt alteration, 
as Gibbon sarcastically remarks, since the few sheets 
of parchment sold for much wealth and power. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 115 

of Charlemagne^ and just as tlie dispute respect- 
ing the surrender of the conquered territory began, 
another set of decretals appeared, bearing the same 
name, and professing to be the true, authentic, 
and complete Isidorean Decretals. Most of the 
things contained in the previous compilation were 
incorporated in the new one, but they were so 
garbled and interpolated that their meaning was 
entirely perverted, w^hilst very much of their con- 
tents was now foisted in and added for the first 
time. Amongst the new matter were the pre- 
tended donations of Constantino, in which it was 
asserted that the imperial city, the birtiiplace, the 
nursery, and the metropolis of the Eoman power, 
was abandoned by the emperors, and by them 
given to St. Peter and the bishops of Rome his 
successors. 

Now the mere novelty of this claim is sufficient 
of itself, even were there no other confirmatory 
evidence, to stamp it as a falsehood and a forgery. 
Is it possible, is it conceivable, that Rome, the 
ancient mistress of the world, should have been 
given away four hundred and fifty years previously, 
and yet the gift have been heard of in Charle- 
magne's reign for the first time ? Would there 
have been no protest nor opposition on the part 
of a people, recently and partially converted from 
paganism, at the surrender of a city from which 
their glory and their very name sprang ? Would 
there have been no exultation or rejoicing on the 
part of the Christians when they became possessed 
of tlie capital of the whole earth ? Would the in- 
numerable ecclesiastical writers have made no men 



118 LIFE AND TIMES 

tion of the fiact, that the metropolis of the worlol 
had become the domain of the Church ? Would 
Eusebius have passed it over in silence ? If Con- 
stantino had given, would not Julian have re- 
claimed it ? Would the popes have made no use 
of the fact in their constant controversies with 
the emperors during the whole intervening period? 
Must there not have been some exercise of sove- 
reignty over the city, or at least some claim set 
up to it during the four hundred and fifty years 
in which the right is asserted to have been pos- 
sessed ? Yet there is not a vestige, not a shadow 
of a shade of any of these things, during the 
whole period. The claim was absolutely and en- 
tirely new, and was utterly unheard of before. 
This one fact would suffice of itself to brand the 
donation as an impudent forgery. 

But we are not left to this negative proof: 
there is* abundant, direct, and positive evidence, 
that these decretals were not composed till some 
years, or even some centuries, after the date 
claimed for them, and that they were forged about 
the time when we first hear of them. The fraud 
was so clumsily contrived, and so ignorantly exe- 
cuted, that every page abounds with anachron- 
isms and absurdities, which in a more critical and 
less credulous age must have caused its instant 
detection. The compiler made up his book by ex- 
tracts from ecclesiastical documents, written very 
long after the date which he ascribed to his De- 
cretals, mutilating them to suit his pui*pose, with- 
out taking the trouble, however, to remove the 
thino's in them which were inconsistent with the 



OF CHARLEMAGNE 117 

age in whicli they were said to have been written, 
without caring that there should be consistency, 
or congruity, or even an intelligible connection, 
between the various parts of the same decree. 
Ancient bishops quote from a version of the Scrip- 
tures made long after their decease. Pagan em- 
perors are described as defending the Church, and 
Christian emperors as persecuting it. The pre- 
tended writers speak of events which happened, 
and persons who lived centuries after their own 
time. The Scriptures are mutilated and misap- 
plied in a manner which must excite either indig- 
nation at the effrontery or pity for the ignorance 
manifested. Thus, the language of the inhabitants 
of Sodom to Lot, in the ninth verse of the nine- 
teenth chapter of Genesis, is quoted as the lan- 
guage of Grod, forbidding the interference of lay- 
men in ecclesiastical affairs. The animus of the 
compilation may be conjectured from the fact, 
that the priests are represented as the apple of 
God's eye; whoever sinned against them sinned 
against God, as they were the representatives of 
God and Christ, and men were to see Christ in 
them; they were subject to no secular tribunal, 
but God had appointed them judges over all.''' 

Such were these famous pseudo-Isidorean De- 
cretals — a forgery to which the popes gave th«ir 
countenance, by which they profited, to which 
they affixed the seal of their infallibility, even if 
they were not themselves guiltily implicated in the 

•'^' See Neandcr's "Church Historv," vol. yI. pp. 102- 
105. 



118 LIFE AND TIMES 

fraud.* Through centuries of credulity, igao- 
ranee, and superstition, the dishonest and blas- 
phemous fiction remained unchallenged, and it 
still stands incorporated with the authoritative 
traditions of that Churchy which amidst all its 
^Mying wonders^' and ^' deceivableness of un- 
righteousness/* can scarcely show any thing more 
false and flagitious. 

Whilst the pope was thus claiming authority 
over Italy, and urging Charlemagne to concede it 
to him, the bishops of Lombardy and the exarchate 
of Ravenna were protesting as loudly against such 
a course, representing that if he acceded to the 
pope's wishes, it would only be robbing one church 
to give to another, and that their possessions and 
independence would all be swallowed up by the 
avarice and ambition of Rome. The dukes and 
counts who held office in Lombardy joined their 
bishops in this protest, and at the same time fur- 
ther complicated the quarrel by charging the pope 
with selling as slaves to the Saracens the peasantry 
on the estates which had been given up to him. 
Charlemagne wrote very indignantly to Adrian 
respecting this complaint brought against him, 



■^ Dr. Doyle, one of the ablest modern advocates of 
th(? papacy, pities the simple-hearted and unsuspecting 
pontilfs, thus made the dupes of some Tvicked forger, 
who shamefully imposed upon their guileless simplicity. 
He does not, however, explain how infallibility could be 
deceived, nor how it comes to pass that the popes have 
not surrendered their ill-gotten gains after tlieir detec- 
tion of the forged and fraudulent character of their 
title-deeds. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 119 

and, in tlie spring of the year 781, visited E-ome 
to adjust matters. It seems probable, though by 
no means certain, that he now put the pope in 
possession of extensive estates round the city. In 
all the subsequent controversies between the papal 
and the imperial power, the pontiffs and their a«^- 
vocates appealed to a deed of gift which was al- 
leged to be laid up in the archives of the Vatican. 
As the deed was never produced, however, we can 
know nothing of its nature or extent, and with 
the history of the forged donation of Constantino 
before us, we cannot feel entire confidence as to 
its existence at all. Of this we may be quite sure, 
that it did not concede to the pope the sovereignty 
of the district in question. The assertions of the 
papal advocates that it did so are disproved by 
numerous facts. Charlemagne retained and exer- 
cised all his royal rights and prerogatives over the 
city and territory intact, and only surrendered the 
proprietorship of the soil into the grasping and 
avaricious hands of the papal see. The claim to 
independent sovereignty was a subsequent usur- 
pation . 

The concessions made by Charlemagne, so far 
from satisfying the avarice and ambition of Adrian, 
only stimulated them. He endeavored, by the 
aid of the Franks, to extend his possessions on 
every hand, and with this design tried to involve 
his allies in broils with all the states of Italy. 
He especially coveted the duchy of Beneventum, 
and wrote to Charlemagne complaining of the 
conduct of Grimoald, its duke, and advising that 
he should still be detained a prisoner^ and his 



120 LIFE AND TIMES 

territory conquered and divided : '' Hasten to 
send such an army as shall conduce to the profit 
of our holy Church, and to that of your royal ex- 
cellency : rest assured that I thus urge you, not 
from any avidity for those cities, but for the good 
oT the holy Church, and of your royal majesty/' 
Charlemagne had, however, by this time discovered 
the selfish and revengeful character of the pope, 
notwithstanding his professions of humility and 
charity; and refusing to be influenced by his ad- 
vice, set Grimoald at liberty, and restored to him 
the duchy of Beneventum. Adrian, instead of 
taking his disappointment in good part, wrote an 
almost abusive letter to the emperor, reproaching 
him with having '^ spared a generation of vipers, 
which it behooved him to have crushed/' 

The conflicts of Charlemagne, so far as we have 
yet traced them, have been waged with the sword ; 
we have now to see him enter on a fresh arena, 
and take up a new weapon — the pen, employing 
it, not in defence of the papacy, but in opposition 
to it. 

In the year 787, a council was held at Nicea, 
in which it was decreed that '' the sign of the 
cross, and images of Christ, the virgin, angels, 
and of holy and pious men, should be placed in 
the churches to be adored 3'' and the three hun- 
dred and fifty bishops assembled set the example 
of obedience to the decree by ordering an image 
to be brought into the place of meeting, where it 
received the adoration of all present. In order 
to protest against and counteract this idolatrous 
decree, Charlemagne composed, or ordered to be 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 121 

composed^* tlie treatise known as the Quatuor 
Lihri GaroUni. The tendency and spirit of the 
book maybe inferred from the following extracts : 
" God alone is to be worshipped, he alone to be 
adored, he alone to be glorified. Of him the 
prophet says, ^His name alone is excellent.^ Psa. 
cxlviii. 13. Keverence is likewise due to the saints, 
who, having overcome the devil, now reign with 
Christ, because they manfully labored and suffered, 
in order that the Churcli should come down to our 
times, and because they are able to assist the still 
struggling Church with their prayers. But images 
can only be placed in churches without injury to 
the faith when adoration and worship of every kind 
are forbidden, and when they are employed either 
simply as ornaments of the edifice, or as memorials 
of the deeds of the pious dead ; or they may be 
absent altogether without injury to the faith, see- 
ing that they can take no part in accomplishing 
our redemption. ... Those who assert tliat im- 
ages are necessary, even as memorials of holy 
things, plainly declare themselves to be spiritually 
blind, and they acknowledge that they have so 
bad- a memory that without these things to remind 
them, they should forget the- service of God and 
the love of the saints; they confess, too, that 

*We say "composed, or ordered to be composed," 
because though the book is in substance the expression 
of the monarch's convictions, and though it is evident 
that many passages were dictated by himself, yet he must 
have received some assistance in its composition. The 
share which Alcuin had in its preparation has been 
probably over-estimated, as at the period of its publi- 
cation (790) he was absent in England. 



122 LIFE AND TIMES 

tliey are unable to raise the eyes of tlieir nn- 
dei-standing lieavenward, above the objects of 
sense, or to drink from the fountain of eternal life 
without the aid of that which is material and 
bodily. But the spirit of man ought to live in 
such close communion with Him in whose image 
it was created, as to be able to embrace Christ, who 
is the sole image of spiritual truth ; and it is 
miserable infatuation to say that the spirit would 
leave him without the aid of these gross material 
memorials. The faith of Christians ought not to 
be dependent upon these outward things, but to 
be rooted in the heart Grod who fills in- 
finite space is not to be worshipped or prayed to 
under finite and material forms; but his constant 
presence is to be enjoyed by the pure heart. . . . 
We Christians, who contemplate with unveiled 
face the glory of God, and into whose image we 
are changed from glory to glory, (2 Cor iii. 18,) 
must no longer seek the truth by means of images 
and pictures : we who, by His aid attain to a 
knowledge of the truth through faith, hope, and 
love, must not adopt such means as these/^ 

It would be difiicult to find the nature of true 
spiritual worship moTe clearly stated, and its obli- 
gations more distinctly asserted, than in this and 
many other passages which might be quoted, did 
space permit. It is moreover, gratifying to ob- 
serve, that though in one extract the intercession 
of the glorified saints is erroneously affirmed, and 
in other passages the duty of paying a reverential 
respect to their relics is admitted, yet everywhere, 
God in Christ is maintained to be the only proper 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 123 

object of worship, without the intervention of 
priestly mediators or material images, and by the 
direct approach of the redeemed and sanctified 
spirit to its God and Father. 

A copy of the treatise was sent to Rome by 
Angilbert, abbot of Eiquieri. The pope answered 
it to the best of his abihty, but failed to convince 
the Franks. A synod was held at Frankfort in 
the year 794, to consider the whole question. 
Legates from Rome advocated the papal doctrine, 
but without success. Image worship was indig- 
nantly and unanimously repudiated as a new and 
abominable heresy. By the second canon of the 
council they affirmed, that they were shocked ^^at 
the new doctrine that they were to worship images 
made of color, or of inlaid work, as God or the 
Saviour. We utterly reject both the adoration 
and service of images, despising and condemning 
it by common consent.^^ 

Whilst Charlemagne thus resolutely and skil- 
fully opposed the idolatrous and superstitious ten- 
dencies of the papal Church, he showed his entire 
freedom from all bigotry by cooperating with the 
pope in his attempts to repress the Arian and 
Unitarian tendencies of the Spanish churches. 
A doctrine styled Adoptionism had sprung up, 
and attained considerable influence among them. 
From the meagre notices of it we possess, it seems 
to have orginated in speculations as to the nature 
of the relationship between God the Father and 
the Son, it being asserted that Christ in his human 
nature was the Son of God, not essentially, but 
only by adoption. It seems that this doctrine, as 



124 LIFE AND TIMES 

originally propounded, and as lield by its wisest 
and best advocate, Felix, bishop of Urgellis, was 
not designed to trench upon the Divinity of Christ, 
or the doctrine of the Trinity, but was merely a 
metaphysical attempt to explain them. But with 
the mass of its followers it soon came to be.under- 
stood in an Arian or even Socinian sense. It is 
not our purpose to follow out the course of this 
intricate controversy, but simply to state its most 
prominent facts. The pope tried his usual policy 
of coercion. Felix being invited to Rome, was 
there imprisoned. In his dungeon he recanted* 
but on his liberation and return to his diocese, he 
relapsed into his heretical opinions. Charlemagne 
now interfered, and employed Alcuin to write to 
those bishops who had distinguished themselves 
by their reception and advocacy of the new doc- 
trine. Felix wrote a very able and temperate 
treatise in reply, in which he professed himself 
open to conviction, but as yet unconvinced. This 
having been read to Charlemagne, he requested 
Alcuin to prepare an answer to it. To this Alcuin 
said, that for a single individual to take upon 
himself to pronounce upon a doctrine so novel 
and important as that now brought under con- 
sideration would be inconsistent with Christian 
humility. He therefore proposed that a copy of 
the treatise of Felix should be sent to the pope, 
the patriarch of Aquileia, the bishop of Orleans, 
and the bishop of Treves, and that each of them 
should be requested to prepare an answer to it 
independently of the others. If they agreed in 
their condemnation of it^ and in their argu- 



OP CHARLEMAGNE. 125 

ments against it^ this would be strong proof 
of tlieir common truth and of its falsity; but 
if they disagreed, then the language and argu- 
ments of each should be tested by an appeal 
to Scripture and the orthodox fathers. This pro- 
posal is very remarkable, coming from so staunch 
an advocate of the papacy as Aicuin, implying as 
it does that even he attributed to the pope no 
authoritative and decisive voice in matters of faith. 

The reply prepared by Alcuin and the other 
bishops was ultimately read to Charlemagne^ who 
suggested some alterations in it, which were adopt- 
ed. Felix, however, remained unconvinced by 
the combined efforts of royal and episcopal rea- 
sonings. Charlemagne, therefore, anxious for the 
restoration of peace and amity to the Frank 
churches, invited him to a conference with the 
orthodox bishops, where their differences of doc- 
trine might be calmly and tranquilly discussed. 

The proposal was accepted, and the conference 
held in the palace at Aix la Chapelle in the year 
799. The gentle and pious conduct of Alcuin 
prepared the way for the reception of his argu- 
ments. Ultimately Felix confessed himself con- 
vinced, * and by his influence upwards of ten 
thousand persons returned into the bosom of the 
Church — persons who, if the papal system of 

■^" It is, however, more than questionable whether he 
ever thoroughly and cordially abandoned the doctrine 
of Adoptionism. His conviction of its truth seems to 
have been shaken, and he consented, for the sake of 
peace, to keep silence upon what he felt to be a doubt' 
tul speculation. 



126 LIFE AND TIMES 

persecution had been persisted in, would doubtless 
have been repelled into the barren and dreary 
wastes of Arianism. Alcuin, speaking of- the 
affiiir, modestly says: — ^^ Divine grace visiting his 
heart, he confessed that he had been seduced into 
an unauthorized and false opinion/^ 

We have dwelt somewhat at large on these two 
controversies, partly from their intrinsic import- 
ance, and partly from the evidence they afford of 
the deep interest which Charlemagne took in re^ 
ligious truth, and his determination to defend it 
against the encroachments of superstition on the 
one hand, and of rationalistic skepticism on the 
other. 

During the course of these events, on the 25th 
December, 795, Adrian expired. He had filled 
the papal chair during the whole reign of Charle- 
magne, who seems to have sincerely lamented his 
death, and is said to have burst into tears when 
it was announced to him. On the day after the 
death of Adrian, Leo III. was elected his suc- 
cessor. Immediately on his accession, the new 
pontiff despatched legates to Charlemagne bearing 
the keys and standard of the city in token of 
allegiance, and at the same time requesting that 
he would send ofiicers ^Ho administer the oath to 
the people of Rome that they would be faithful 
and submissive to him/' This is a sufficient 
proof of itself that the pope was so far from 
claiming the sovereignty of Rome, and that the 
people were so far from admitting it, that both 
agreed in acknowledging Charlemagne as thoii 
temporal prince. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 127 

Four years after the elevation of Leo to the 
pontificate, the discontent of the Romans broke 
out into violent insurrection against him. On 
the 25th April^ 799^ as the pope was walking at 
the head of a procession of clergy and penitents^ 
he was seized by a band of conspirators, led on 
by the canon Pascal and the sacristan Campulus. 
They threatened to murder the feeble old man 
who had fallen into their hands, but, touched 
with pity for his infirmities and reverence for his 
office, they contented themselves with shutting 
him up in prison. His escape from their hands, 
which was effected by the aid of his chamberlain, 
was magnified into a miracle. It was, moreover, 
affirmed that his tongue had been cut out and his 
eyes plucked from their sockets, but that they 
were miraculously restored. The tidings of this 
outrage and the pope's escape, with all the mar- 
vellous embellishments, were communicated to 
Charlemao:ne, who was at that time assemblino- 
his troops at the sources of the Lippe to chastise 
some of the tribes beyond the Rhine. He de- 
spatched officers to receive the pope with due 
honor, and to bring him to Paderborn, where he 
awaited his arrival. It was the first time the 
bishop of Rome had crossed the Rhine or been 
seen so far northward. Charlemagne received 
him with due reverence, presented him to the 
homage of the assembled troops, heard his report 
of the affair and his protestation of entire inno- 
cence of the infamous charges brought against 
him, sent him back to Rome with a sufficient 
guard to protect him from further outrage, and 



128 LIFE AND TIMES 

promised to follow him as speedily as possible, to 
acquaint liimself with the truth of the case and 
render justice to both parties. 

Having made a rapid tour of his dominions to 
insure peace during his absence, he reached Rome 
on the 24th November, 800, and at once convened 
a court, consisting of the Frank and Roman lords, 
and as many archbishops, bishops, and abbots as 
could be assembled. Having announced to them 
that his principal object in visiting Rome was to 
investigate the charges against the pope, he was 
about to proceed with the case when the whole 
clergy rose and said, that it was not competent 
for them to sit in judgment upon their ecclesias- 
tical superior. The court was then broken up, 
and the proceedings stayed. Whether Charle- 
magne would have proceeded with the lay lords 
alone in the matter, we cannot tell, as the pope 
offered to exculpate himself and attest his inno- 
j3ence by oath, which he did in public, standing 
in the pulpit of St. Peter in the Vatican. The^ 
proceedings were thus quashed, and the principal 
enemies of Leo were either imprisoned or sent 
into exile. 

It was on the occasion of this visit to Rome, 
and just one month after his arrival, that the 
pope crowned Charlemagne emperor of the Ro- 
mans, as narrated in the first chapter of this vol- 
ume. Having remained for three months longer, 
to adjust fully and finally the quarrels between 
the pope and the people, Charlemagne left Rome 
for the last time, travelled through Italy, visiting 
each town of importance in his route; and having 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 129 

issued a new code of laws for his Italian subjects, 
which might prevent the recurrence of those dis- 
turbances between the Romans and Lombards, 
previously so incessant, he reached France toward 
the close of the year. 

In thus tracing out the relations between Char- 
lemagne and the papacy, we have glanced at some 
of those frauds and falsehoods by which ^^the 
man of sin ^^ has succeeded in attaining wealth 
and power. The same system of forgery and de- 
ceit was afterwards employed with equal success, 
in changing the mere proprietorship of those vast 
estates granted by Charlemagne into an inde- 
pendent sovereignty. Who can avoid contrasting 
this shameful history, in which the most sacred 
names and the most holy things were prostituted 
to the most selfish purposes and dishonest prac- 
tices, with the history of Him who was ^^holy, 
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners'^ — 
Who, " though he was rich, yet for our sakes he 
became poor, that we, through his poverty, might 
be rich ^' — Who counted it " more blessed to 
give than to receive V Yet these men, who 
shrank from no crime in order to gratify their 
own ambitious and avaricious designs, professed 
to be His servants and vicegerents, to be acting 
under his immediate and infallible guidance, and 
to be consulting his sole glory. Or, contrast the 
course of these men with that of the apostle 
whose representatives and successors they pro- 
fessed themselves to be. The one lesson taught 
by his life may be expressed in his own words, 
'' Feed the flock of God which is among you, tak- 
5 



130 LIFE AND TIMES 

ing the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but 
willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready 
mind ; neither as being lords over God's heritage, 
but being en samples to the flock/' It would be 
difficult to imagine any contrast more striking and 
complete than that between Christ and these his 
pretended vicars, or Peter and his professed suc- 
cessors. 

Yet even from this narrative of impiety and 
fraud we may learn some useful lessons. No- 
where else are we taught more emphatically the 
forbearance and long-suffering of God. If sin be 
in every case that abominable thing which he 
hates, it must be specially hateful to him when 
committed by those who minister at his altars, 
and who profess that in thus acting they are ful- 
filling his commands and seeking his honor. God 
is thus made to appear the patron of and the par- 
taker in their sins. And this system of fraud 
has continued for ages, during which these im- 
pious men have arrogated to themselves the Di- 
vine name and authority, and claimed that rever- 
ence and submission which are due to God alone. 
Yet God has not awakened his thunders, has not 
answered them by fire, has not ^^ consumed them 
with the breath of his mouth, nor destroyed them 
with the brightness of his coming.^' Truly he is 
^^ long-suffering and gracious, slow to anger, and 
plenteous in mercy.'' 

But since we know from the sure word of pro- 
phecy that a terrible consummation must be 
reached at last, since we are assured that He will 
ultimately come forth and avenge himself upon 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. I3l 

those wlio have thus polluted the high places of 
the Churchy prostituted His holy name to their 
dishonest purposes, and, in the garb, and under 
the proi^ssion, of sanctity, pursued their unholy 
designs, let us beware not to trespass upon his 
forbearance, and take warning lest '^ because sen- 
tence against an evil work is not executed 
speedily,^ ^ our hearts should be fully set in us 
^' to do evil/' 



132 LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER V. 

THE PERSONAL CHARACTER, HISTORY, AND IN- 
FLUENCE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 

Difficulty of fairly judging the private character of public men — 
Efforts of Charlemagne for self-culture — The means he adopted 
for its attainment — Alcuin — Eginlmrdt — Other learned men 
patronized by Charlemagne — The Schola Palatina — Charlemagne's 
attainments in general knowledge — Influence of the royal exam- 
ple — Patronage of obscure youths — Multiplication of books — Re- 
marks on the beneficial influence of this— Cultivation of music — 
Introduction of the Roman stj^le of architecture — Description of 
the royal palaces and farms — Promotion of commercial enterprise 
— Embassy to Persia — Manufactures — Attempts the formation of 
a ship canal through central Europe — Dress and daily life — Ridi- 
cules the foppery of his courtiers — Hoax played upon the Greek 
ambassadors — Rigid economy of time — Moral character — Personal 
appearance — Death. 

We have now sketched the public life of 
Charlemagne^ and viewed him as a warrior, as a 
legislator, and in his relations with the papal 
Church. The king has hitherto engaged all our 
attention — we have yet to see the man. The 
career of the monarch is not always a correct in- 
dex to the character of the individual. National 
policy often compels him to appear before us un- 
der an aspect which does not really belong to him, 
and to conceal thoughts and feelings to which, in 
a private station, he would give free expression. 
The influence of circumstances will sometimes in- 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 138 

vesfc Mm witli an air of greatness^ and prompt 
him to acts of excellence, when he is in reality 
neither great nor excellent; just as an insignifi- 
cant building, placed on a commanding elevation, 
and gleaming in the rays of the rising or setting 
sun, will often excite admiration which it does 
not deserve; its position and circumstances at 
o^ice blinding us to its defects, and surrounding 
it with an extrinsic magnificence. If we would 
truly estimate the character of those raised above 
us, and occupying the high places of the earth, 
we must approach them and examine their con- 
duct when divested of the glare and glitter of roy- 
alty. We shall therefore in this chapter collect 
from the scanty records of the age, such facts as 
seem fitted to illustrate the private and personal 
character, and history of Charlemagne. They 
will show that the man no less than the monarch 
is deserving of the epithet — great. 

First in importance, as illustrative of his char- 
acter, and as reacting upon it, were his efforts 
after self-education. He threw the same intense 
and indomitable energy into this as into every 
thing else that he attempted. Those who remem- 
ber the efforts of their childhood in learning to 
write, " what labor dire it was and weary woe/' 
will believe this, since Eginhardt, his affectionate 
and admiring biographer, says that, " late in life 
he tried to learn the art of writing, but the pre- 
posterous attempt succeeded but badly, being com- 
menced at too advanced an age to succeed. '^ As 
a consequence probably of his bad success in this 
^' preposterous attempt,'^ he continued down the 



134 LIFE AND TIMES 

close of life to confirm treaties, not by affixing his 
signature, but by stamping the parchment with 
his sword-hilt, saying as he did so^ ^^I have sealed 
this treaty with the pommel of my sword^ and I 
will maintain it with its point/' 

The means he employed for attaining education 
illustrated his perfect freedom from all narrow 
prejudice or jealousy. . He felt the necessity of 
having living teachers both for himself and his 
subjects. Oral instruction must precede books 
and prepare the way for them. But France could 
not furnish such. Whilst the monarch could not 
write, few of his courtiers could read. Instead, 
therefore^ of allowing national animosities and 
jealousies to prevent him from seeking help froJi 
foreign nations, he invited learned men from ev6;.y 
country to which his influence extended, ofFbr- 
ing them the highest honors and richest rewards 
he could bestow if they would take up their abode 
at his court. Among those who accepted this 
invitation and shared his bounty were English, 
Goths, Burgundians, Spaniards, Saxons, and 
Lombards. He even commissioned the ambassa- 
dors whom he dispatched to the famous Haroun 
al Raschid, the caliph of Bagdad, to inquire 
whether there were any persons at that learned 
court who would accept his hospitality. 

Among the scholars of various nations who 
associated themselves with him, the most influen- 
tial, and by far the most intellectually gifted man 
of his age, was Alcuin, to whom frequent refer- 
ence has been made in the preceding pages. 

He was born in the city of York^ or in its 



OF CHARLEMAGNE 135 

neigliborliood,* some time in the year 735. The 
year of his birth thus coincides with that of the 
death of the venerable Bede, a man so similar in 
character and spirit^ that^ did we believe in the 
transmigration of souls, we might regard Alcuin 
•but as the avatar, the reappearance of his illus- 
trious predecessor. He studied at York under 
Egbert and Aelbert, the scholars, and friends of 
Bede. Hence, doubtless, much of the similarity 
between them. Of the affection with which he 
regarded his teachers, we have a striking proof in 
the grateful and affectionate mention he makes of 
them in his poetical "record of the bishops and 
saints of York. Of Aelbert he says : — 

*' For to Mm Christ was love, 

Meat, drink, yea Clirist was all, 
Glory, the way to joys above, 
Hope that could every grief remove, 
And life celestial, "f 

With such a teacher we cannot wonder at the 
simple faith and ardent love which were so sig- 
nally displayed in the character of Alcuin. His 
rich stores of knowledge and clear vigorous intel- 
lect were no less remarkable than his piety. 

Having been induced to settle in France, he 
speedily became the most intimate friend and 
trusted counsellor of Charlemagne. When com- 
pelled to separate from one another, as was some- 
times the case, from the exigencies of the state, 

^' Pie has, however been claimed as a native of Scot- 
land. 

f '^ Qui Christus, amor, potusy cibus, omnia Christus, 
Vita, fides, sensus, spes, lux, via, gloria, virtus.'^ 



136 LIFE AND TIMES 

and tlie inability of Alcuin to travel so fast or so 
constantly as his imperial master, there seems to 
have been a constant correspondence maintained 
between them ; Charlemagne writing to his "• in- 
tellectual prime minister ^' on almost all matters 
of diflSculty which arose either in his government 
or his studies. The letters which yet remain 
show how multifarious were the subjects on which 
the emperor thought and required information. 
His questions, indeed, embrace the whole sum of 
then existing knowledge, — grammar, geography, 
astronomy, etymology, music, chronology, etc., 
etc. Some of the Biblical inquiries which he 
proposed to '^ his most beloved teacher in the Lord 
Jesus Christ,^ ^ as he was accustomed to call Al- 
cuin, are very curious and interesting as proving 
how closely he studied that truth which could 
make him ^^wise unto salvation.'' He asks, for 
instance, why none of the evangelists record the 
hymn which they say the J'ord and his disciples 
sang before they went out into the garden of 
Gethsemane ) what was the nature and design of 
our Lord^s transfiguration ) and to whom we are 
to understand the price of man's redemption was 
remitted. 

The character of the man and the nature of the 
intercourse between the teacher and the royal 
scholar will perhaps be best illustr^'ted by the two 
following extracts from their correspondence. 
The first is dated from the abbey of St. Martin, 
at Tours, to which Alcuin had retired from the 
fatigues of office and the infirmities of age. It 
was addressed to Charlemagne on his attaining his 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 187 

fifty-eiglitli birtliday. ^^I long meditated/' lie 
says, "what present I could offer you which should 
be not only not beneath your dignity to accept, 
but which should also form some real addition to 
your wealth. For I could not rest satisfied that 
whilst others were laying costly offerings at your 
feet I should not present you with any thing. At 
length, by the suggestion of the Holy Grhost, I 
bethought me of a present both suitable for me to 
offer and for you to accept ? What indeed could 
be more worthy of you, than the divine books 
which I herewith send to your majesty, collected 
together and, to the utmost of my power, freed 
from inaccuracies ? If I could have devised any 
thing better I would have sent it to you with the 
utmost zeal for the promotion of your glory and 
prosperity.^' What present, indeed, could be 
more suitable from the subject to the sovereign 
than the word of God ? 

The second extract is from a letter in which 
Alcuin consoles him for the recent loss of his 
queen : " Our Lord Jesus Christ, our hope, our 
safety, our consolation, has with his gentle ^>oice 
commanded all who groan, being burdened, to 
come to him, saying, ' Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest.' What can be more sweet than this pro- 
mise ? What more blessed than this hope ? Let 
each sorrowing spirit, let each contrite heart, come 
to him and find shelter in that Divine compassion. 
Let no one hide his wounds from that Physician 
who says, ' I kill and I make alive again, I wound 
and I heal.' How skilfully does our heavenly 



138 LIFE AND TIMES 

Father chastise his children that he may sanctify 
those for whose salvation he did not spare his own 
Son ! Kemember, that for thy sake He descended 
and suffered the things thou hast read in the 
Gospels, that he may prepare for thee a mansion 
in his Father's house /^ 

Such correspondence is equally honorable to 
both parties ; and one knows not whether most to 
admire the king who in that barbarous age could 
invite and prize, or the counsellor who could offer, 
such advice and consolation. 

As Alcuin felt the infirmities of age creep upon 
him, he longed to retire fixim the busy world, and 
to devote the closing years of his life to medita- 
tion and prayer. Even in the full vigor of man- 
hood, he had often felt the ceaseless activity re- 
quired by Charlemagne to be burdensome, and 
now a profound weariness and dissatisfaction seized 
him. He repeatedly requested his master to 
allow him to retire from court and live in seclu- 
sion. The emperor, however, knew too well the 
value of his trusted counsellor and friend to part 
with him willingly. At length, in the year 796, 
the solicitations of Alcuin prevailed, and the ab- 
bey of St. Martin at Tours was given him as a 
retreat. Even in his honorable retirement and 
repose he was not idle : he undertook the active 
superintendence of the monastery, he employed 
a number of young priests in copying manuscripts 
to enrich the library : he himself directed their 
labors, and he continued the work of education 
which through life he had felt to be his true vo- 
cation ; and many of the young men, whom he 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 139 

trained in tlie school whicli lie formed, grew up 
to play important parts in tlie world after lie was 
gone. Charlemagne made many efforts to recall 
him to his side; but in vain. In answer to one 
such request he replied, " G-rant, I pray you, that 
a weary man may repose himself, that he may 
daily pray for you^ and that he may prepare him- 
self by confessions and tears to appear before the 
eternal Judge. ^^ 

In the year 801 he resigned all his honors, 
wealth, and engagements, and three years after 
he died, on the 19th of May, 804. History re- 
cords few lives more usefully spent or more hap- 
pily closed. 

Next in influence and energy to Alcuin was 
Eginhardt. He was an Austrian Frank, and be- 
longed to that least civilized part of the nation 
who lived beyond the Ehine. He hence speaks 
of himself as a barbarian, and apologizes for the 
defects of his Latinity, as arising from this cause. 
He was introduced by Alcuin to Charlemagne 
when young, and was speedily raised by the em- 
peror to the post of secretary, and employed to 
superintend most of the public works carried on 
during his reign. 

After the death of Charlemagne, Eginhardt 
continued in the service of Louis, his son and suc- 
cessor, but soon becoming disgusted with the 
feeble and superstitious character of the young 
j)rince, he sought and obtained permission to leave 
ih^ court and retire to his estates. As he found 
old age creeping on, he, according to a custom 
ver}'- frequent in those ages, separated from his 



140 LIFE AND TIMES 

wife, and thev retired, he to a monastery — she to 
a nunnery. The reason for this strange practice 
was the superstitious belief that whoever died in 
the habit and profession of one of the religious 
orders, was thereby fitted for and entitled to an 
immediate entrance into heaven. She died in the 
year 836, and he thus pathetically expresses his 
grief at her decease to his friend Lupus, abbot of 
Ferrieres : ^^ Ail my previous cares for my friends, 
or for myself, are nothing to me now. All sinks 
into nothing, all is effaced by this cruel sorrow — 
the death of my wife, my sister, my beloved com- 
panion and friend for so many years!* It is a 
misery which cannot cease, for her memory is so 
deeply engraven on my heart that nothing can 
destroy it. What redoubles my grief, and aggra- 
vates my wounds is, that all my prayers and tears 
have been unavailing, and all my hopes deceived. 
The words of those who attempt to console me 
only reopen my wounds, for they call upon me to 
support with calmness sorrows they do not feel, 
and in which they cannot point out the slightest 
source of contentment.^' 

How differently do Alcuin and Eginhardt 
speak of death ! The one can find no source 
^'even of contentment/' but his grief is bitter, 
uncontrolled, and inconsolable — the other, as we 
saw a few pages back, points out hopes and bless- 
ings even in bereavement itself. It is not enough 
to explain the contrast, as Eginhardt attempts to 
do, by saying that those who speak the language 
of resignation and cheerfulness are not themselves 
bereaved; and are endeavoring to console others 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 141 

under sorrows which they do not feel, becailse we 
find that Alcuin and those like-minded can give 
utterance to such feelings even when the blow 
has fallen upon themselves. The only adequate 
explanation is, that superstition fails to give con- 
fidence and support in the hour of trial, and will 
abandon us, as it abandoned Eginhardt, to ^^ cruel 
sorrow ^^ and ^^ unavailing tears/^ whilst the 
strong faith in God and Christ which Alcuin 
possessed keeps us from sorrowing "' even as 
others which have no hope/^ binds '^ up the broken 
hearted/^ and comforts '' those that mourn. ^' 
Scriptural and spiritual religion — an inestimable 
treasure at all times — proves its transcendent ex- 
cellency and worth in the anguish of bereavement, 
and in the darkness of the ^^ valley of the shadow 
of death.'' 

Eginhardt survived his loss only three years, 
and died in 839, at the abbey of Seligstadt, 
which he had himself founded and richly en- 
dowed. Though his chief and characteristic 
excellence was his practical energy, and his co- 
operation with Charlemagne in the affairs of ac- 
tive life, yet his writings are of considerable value. 
The best known and most important of these, 
^' The Life and Conversation of the most Illus- 
trious Emperor Charles the Great,'' is the source 
whence almost all our information of the personal 
history of its hero is drawn. 

Whilst the two just named were the chief 
coadjutors with Charlemagne in his work of 
restoring learning and civilization, there were 
many others associated with them of less cele- 



I'i2 LITE AND TIDIES 

brity indeed, but of scarcely less energy. Of 
one of these, Paul TTarnefrid, or as he is often 
called, Paulus Diaconus, it was said, in the 
extravagant and affected style of the age, ^^ that 
you might discern Homer in his Greek, Yirgil 
in his Latin, and Philo in his Hebrew; his 
poems you would take for those of Horace, and 
his eloquence for that of Tibullus/' Of another, 
Eabanus Maurus, it was said in the same spirit 
of extravagant and affected eulogy, that ^' Ger- 
many had not produced his equal, nor Italy his 
superior/' About these ^^ bright particular 
stars '' there gathered a galaxy of others of 
inferior importance, — Angilbert, Leidrade, 
Smaragde, Benedict of Aniane, Theodulph, 
Adalhard, Amalaric, Agobard, etc. It was in 
association with these admirable men, whom he 
had attracted to his court and attached to his 
person, that Chariamagne addressed himself to 
his great enterprise of gaining and diffusing 
knowledge. 

Among the most important agencies which 
he employed for self culture was the Schola 
Palatina, or School of the Palace. It consisted 
of the emperor, his family, the chief officers of 
state, and those learned men whom he consti- 
tuted his personal attendants. .It accompanied 
him as he travelled from place to place. Alcuin 
was its president, and among the fellow-scholars 
of Charlemagne are enumerated his children 
and grand-children, his sisters, several bishops, 
archbishops, and royal councillors. They as- 
sumed feigned names, taken from sacred or elas- 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 143 

sical antiquity. Charlemagne was styled David ; 
Alcuin took tlie name of Albinus Flaccus ; 
Angilbert that of Homer; Fredegis that of 
Nathan ael ; Grisla^ the daughter of Charlemagne, 
that of Lucia — and so on. It has been generally 
supposed that this adoption of fictitious names 
originated in the pedantry of the age. Without 
denying that this may have had something to do 
with it, a much more probable explanation is 
found in the fact that the emperor sat among the 
scholars, whilst his subjects were the teachers. 
The use of their proper names and titles would 
have kept constantly before them the inconsisten- 
cies and discrepancies of their relative positions, 
and thus have destroyed that perfect freedom of 
intercourse requisite for the successful manage- 
ment of the school. By the adoption of these 
playful pseudonyms this inconvenience was 
avoided : laying aside for the time the titles of 
authority on the one hand, and professions of sub- 
jection on the other, they met on the common 
ground of teachers and learners. What more 
impressive spectacle does history present than 
that of this stalwart old warrior, this potent 
monarch, whose fame was spread, and whose 
power was feared from Arabia to Britain, sitting 
among his children and grand-children, with 
them to listen to the instructions of the wisest 
and best among his subjects? 

As we have already intimated, the instruction 
given was for the most part oral. This was 
n-ecessitated both by the paucity of books, and by 
the inability of the majority of the scholars to 



144 LIFE AND TIMES 

read. The following specimen preserved to us 
in the writings of Alcuin, is a very curious illus- 
tration of the conversational and catechetical na- 
ture of the teaching. The interlocutors are 
Alcuin himself and Pepin, a son of Charlemagne, 
who was then probably about sixteen years of 
age :— 

Pepin. — What is life ? 

Alcuin. — Happiness for the happy, misery 
for the miserable, the expectation of death for 
all. 

Pepin. — What is death ? 

Alcuin. — An inevitable event, a doubtful 
journey, a subject of tears to the living, the thief 
of men. 

Pepin. — What is man ? 

Alcuin. — The slave of death, a passing travel- 
ler, a guest in his own home. 

Pepin. — What is sleep ? 

Alcuin. — The image of death. 

Pepin. — What is man's liberty? 

Alcuin. — Innocence. 

Pepin. — What is the body ? 

Alcuin. — The abode of the soul. 

Pepin. — What is the day ? 

Alcuin. — A call to labor. 

Pepin. — What is the dream of the waking ? 

Alcuin. — Hope. 

Pepin. — What is friendship? 

Alcuin. — The similarity of souls. 

Pepin. — What is faith ? 

Alcuin. — The assurance of unknown and 
wonderful things. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 115 

The catechism^ or conversation ^ tlins proceeds 
through more than a hundred questions and an- 
swers similar in kind to those selected. '' Clear- 
ly/^ says Guizot^ " as a means of education these 
conversations are altogether and strangely puerile ; 
but as an indication and commencement of intel- 
lectual movement they merit all attention; they 
evince that eager curiosity with which the mind 
in its crude infancy directs its gaze upon all 
things, and takes pleasure in every unexpected 
combination and every ingenious idea; a tendency 
manifested equally in the childhood of individu- 
als and the childhood of nations. '^ 

Charlemagne's attainments in general know 
ledge seem to have been very considerable for a 
man of that age. Eginhardt says of him : '^ Du- 
ring his meals, he always listened to some narra- 
tive of what had happened, or was read to by the 
officer appointed for that purpose. His favorite 
books were histories, and the exploits of the an- 
cients ; he was likewise very partial to the writings 
of St. Augustin, and especially to his ' City of 
God.' He was eloquent, and could express with 
facility every thing he wished. He did not con- 
fine himself to his own tongue, but knew Latin 
so well; as to be able to speak it with the utmost 
ease. He understood Grreek better than he 
could speak it. He carefully studied the liberal 
arts, and very much respected and richly rewarded 
those who were skilled in them. In his old age, 
he learned grammar from Peter of Pisa. He also 
spent much time and trouble in learning rhetoric, 
logic; and especially astronomy. In addition to 



146 LIFE AND TIMES 

these, he acquired the knowledge of arithmetic, 
and applied himself with much care to fix the 
course of the stars/' This is, indeed, a very extra- 
ordinary list of attainments for a Frank of the 
eighth century, and when we take into account 
his uMlitary and legislative achievements, it seems 
almost incredible. If his history had no other 
value, it would deserve to be studied as an unsur- 
passed instance of the successful pursuit of know- 
ledge under difficulties. 

The example thus set by the monarch could 
not be without its influence on his subjects. 
Yf hen they saw him whom they had so often fol- 
lowed to battle and to victory, who, on so many 
a hard-fought field had proved himself the glory 
of the Franks, and the terror of their enemies, 
thus devoting every moment he could win from 
the cares of state and the toils of war to the ac- 
quisition of learning, it was reasonable to antici- 
pate for them, that they would feel, or at least 
afi'ect a similar zeal. And though, as the result 
proved, this educational movement was but super- 
ficial and transient, yet it left some permanent 
results behind it. It did away with that con- 
tempt for learning as effeminate and servile, which 
had characterized the preceding ages, and intro- 
duced in its place ^ respect for it, which in those 
medigeval times often led the rude and illiterate 
knights to protect the feeble and helpless scholar, 
and prompted the foundation and endowment of 
many of those schools to which the youth of Eu- 
rope still flock for education. 

WhilsA Charlemagne lived; he was careful by 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 147 

every means in his power to encourage the new^ 
born desire for learning, and to provide the means 
by which it might be supplied after his own de- 
cease. Of the establishment of schools by his 
royal decrees in all the monasteries and churches 
throughout his empire, we have already spoken. 
We have now only to allude to his personal en- 
couragement and support of them. He seems 
constantly to have visited the schools which lay 
in the route of his incessant journeys^ that he 
might acquaint himself with the character* of the 
teachers and scholars, and promote any whom he 
found deserving. Those who distinguished them- 
selves by their aptness in teaching or diligence in 
learning, he would frequently elevate to some 
post about the court, and admit them to the school 
of the palace. This was the case with Eginhardt, 
who was, after Alcuin, the most trusted friend 
and useful servant at the court of Charlemagne. 
The monk of St, Gall narrates the following curious 
anecdote of the monarch in connection with his 
patronage of learning: — ^^Charlemagne used to 
bring up in the school of the palace many youths, 
whose learning and industry he afterwards em- 
ployed in his service. One of these pupils, who 
was in poor circumstances, he made clerk and 
precentor of his chapel. One day they commu- 
nicated to the most prudent emperor the fact, 
that a certain bishop was dead, whereupon he 
asked whether he, by deeds of charity, had sent 
any of his property before him into another world; 
' Only about two pounds of silver, sire,' answered 
the messenger. The young man I just named, 



148 LIFE AND TIMES 

standing by, was unable to repress his vivacity, 
and cried out in spite of himself, in the king's 
presence, ^What a light viaticum for so long a 
journey!' After thinking silently for a moment 
or two, Charlemagne, the most prudent of men, 
said to the young priest, *What say you? if I 
were to give you this bishopric, would you take 
care to make better provision for this great jour- 
ney?' The other, hastening to swallow these 
words, like grapes ripe before their time falling 
into his half-open mouth, threw himself at the 
feet of the king, and said, ^My lord, it is for the 
will of Grod and your power to decide/ ^Hide 
yourself,' said the king, ^behind the arras, and 
you shall see what rivals you have for the post/ 
As soon as the death of the bishop was known 
through the court, the officers of the palace, al- 
ways on the watch for the downfall or death of 
ouQ another, set the favorites of the emperor to 
work to secure, each for himself, the vacant post. 
But he, steadfast to his purpose, refused them all. 
At last, queen Hildegarde sent the chief men of 
the kingdom, and then came herself, to solicit the 
bishopric for her chaplain. The king received 
her kindly, heard her graciously, but replied, that 
he should never forgive himself if he deceived 
the young priest. After the fiishion of all women, 
when they wish to make their own wishes triumph 
over the will of their husbands, the queen con- 
cealed her anger, lowered the tone of her naturally 
harsh voice, and endeavored to soften her husband 
by her caresses, saying to him, ' Dear prince, why 
should you throw away this bishopric by giving it 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 149 

to such a mere child? I pray you^ my dear mas- 
ter, my joy and my support^ give it to that de- 
voted servant of yours, my chaplain/ At these 
words, the young man behind the arras, cried out 
in a most lamentable voice, but without quitting 
his hiding-place, ^Lord king, stand firm, let no 
one take out of thy hands the power given thee 
by God/ Then the brave and truthful prince 
commanded the young man to come out from be- 
hind the curtain, and said to him, ^Receive this 
bishopric, but take care to send before you and 
myself into the other world great alms, and a 
sufficient viaticum for that long journey from 
which no one returns/ ^' 

M. Guizot quotes another anecdote from the 
same source which may appropriately find a place 
here. ^^ Another prelate was dead. Charlemagne 
gave the succession to a young man who, well 
contented with his appointment, prepared to .set 
out and to take possession of it. His servants 
brought him a very quiet sort of horse, such as 
suited his episcopal gravity, and placed a stool to 
help him into the saddle. But he, indignant at 
their treating him as though he were infirm, 
kicked the stool from him, and sprang into the 
saddle with such vigor, that he almost fell over 
on the other side. The king saw all this from 
the palace, and calling to the man, said to him, 
^My brave man, thou art lively, active, quick, 
and hast a strong foot. Thou knowest we are in- 
cessantly troubled with a multitude of wars, and 
have need of a priest just such as thou art for 
our suite : remain with us, therefore, and be our 



150 LIFE AND TIMES 

companion in our fatigues, as thou canst mount 
thy horse so readily/ ^^ 

The want of books presented a difficulty in the 
way of education scarcely less than that of living 
teachers. Valuable and necessary as the labors 
of the latter were, yet the former could not be 
dispensed with. But at that time they were not 
to be had. Of the dearth of books in France, 
the following fact out of a multiplicity of others, 
will suffice as proof. Lupus, bishop of Ferrieres, 
wrote to Benedict, then pope, requesting the loan 
of the Commentaries of St. Jerome, and Donatus, 
Cicero de Oratore, and the Institutes of Quinc- 
tilian, saying, that no complete copies of them 
existed in France, but only fragments. To ap- 
preciate the force of this statement, we must re- 
member that these treatises were then regarded 
as text-books. * 

Charlemagne addressed himself with his usual 
energy to meet this want. He caused a scrip- 
torium , or writing-room, to be established in the 
most considerable monasteries, where the monks 
employed themselves in making copies of such 
books as they possessed or could borrow. Many 
of the transcripts thus made were of the most 
exquisite beauty, both in the writing and the 
illuminations. The abbeys of Fontenelle, of 
Bheims, and of Corvey, especially distinguished 

■^ It is a striking proof of the much greater advance 
wliicli England had made, that Alcuin repeatedly re- 
quested permission to visit his native country, and pro- 
cure thence copies of the treatises which he stood in 
most need of. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 151 

themselves by tlie number, accuracy, and beauty of 
their manuscripts. 

Alcuin, foremost in every good work, was not 
behindhand in this. He not only encouraged and 
superintended the labors of others, but himself 
set the example. We have already quoted a letter 
which he sent to Charlemagne, with a revised and 
corrected copy of the Scriptures. Whilst his 
chief attention was directed to the correction and 
multiplication of copies of the word of Grod, and 
religious treatises, it was not confined to these. 
He seems to have edited (if we may use so modern 
a term in speaking of these ages) the plays of 
Terence; and, in conjunction with the emperor, 
to have caused the old.G-erman songs and poems, 
which had been handed down by oral tradition, 
but were then being rapidly forgotten, to be dili-' 
gently collected and committed to writing. It is 
to this fact that we are indebted for the preserva- 
tion of the Niebelungen lay, the oldest and most 
interesting relic of mediaBval literature. 

Charlemagne himself, with the indomitable 
energy and activity which characterized him, 
took part in this work of reproducing manuscripts 
Thegaw, in his Life of Louis, the son and suc- 
cessor of Charlemagne, says, that ^Hhe emperor, 
shortly before his death, by the aid of certain 
learned Greeks and Syrians, corrected most care- 
fully a copy of the Gospels.^' This reminds us 
of the enactment of the Jewish law, that the king 
should copy it out with his own hand. Deut. xvii. 
18-20. 

In order to provide materials for the use of the 



152 LIFE AND TIMES 

innumerable copyists thus- set to work, a singular 
compromise was effected with the clergy of the 
day. It had been enacted that they should ab- 
stain from taking part in hunting or any similar 
field sports, on the ground that it was manifestly 
unbecoming in those whose office it was to give 
eternal life to men, to find their pastimre in put- 
ting animals to death. But finding the habit too 
inveterate to be entirely interdicted, Charlemagne, 
in a subsequent decree, compromised the matter, 
by permitting them to hunt, provided they would 
employ all the skins of the animals slain in the 
chase in replenishing and repairing their libraries. 
The zeal and activity thus displayed in the re- 
production of manuscripts has conferred a two- 
fold benefit upon all succeeding ages. In the 
'first place, many invalu8|ble productions of ancient 
genius were rescued from the extinction of which 
they were on the very verge. In another century 
they would have been lost for ever — lost as com- 
pletely as those of the great oriental nations of 
which scarcely a vestige remains. It is very 
much du6 to the copyists of that age, that the 
literature of G-reece and Rome did not share the 
same fate, and that some priceless fragments and 
relics of ancient genius have escaped the wreck, 
and floated down to us on the stream of time. 
All who are able to appreciate the immense bene- 
fits conferred upon subsequent ages by these 
remains of classical antiquity, and who know the 
mighty influence they exerted in the literary and 
religious awakening and revival of the fifteenth 
century^ will see in this interposition a provide n- 



OP CHARLEMAGNE. 153 

tial arrangement, preserving for us, amidst the 
barbarism of the dark ages, the productions of 
ancient learning. A second, and yet more ines- 
timable benefit, which calls for yet intenser grati- 
tude, has been conferred upon us by the collation 
and correction of the sacred text. By the labors 
of those learned and devout men, it yas purified 
from the blunders of ignorant copyists ; ancient 
manuscripts and accurate transcripts were eagerly 
sought after ] pleasure was taken by the various 
monasteries in the elegance and correctness of 
the copies they produced; and hence, in con- 
junction with other providential agencies, we 
have now the means of acquiring the correct text 
of the Scriptures. 

In ascribing the preservation of these remains 
of classical and sacred antiquity to a providential 
interposition, we are met by an objection which 
it may be well briefly to consider. It may be 
asked, Why was this inroad of barbarism permit- 
ted at all ? Why did God permit the productions 
of ancient science, literature, and art, to be thus 
swept away and all but annihilated, so that the 
portion of them which we now possess, in com- 
parison with what has been lost, is but as the 
scattered fragments flung on shore from the 
wreck of some richly freighted vessel, which has 
sunk with its cargo in the fathomless ocean ? If 
we ought to be grateful for the small portion 
saved, how shall we account for the far greater 
amount lost ? It would be difficult to state this 
more clearly, or answer it more adequately than 
in the words of a distinguished American writer^ 



154 LIFE AND TIMES 

who says, ^^ Scholars and artists have nioTinied for 
ages over the almost universal destruction of the 
works of ancient genius. I suppose that many dr 
second-rate city, at the time of Christ, possessed 
a collection of works of surpassing beauty, which 
could not be equalled by all the specimens now 
existing, which have been yet discovered. The 
Alexandrian library is believed to have contained 
a greater treasure of intellectual riches than has 
ever since been hoarded in a single city. These 
we know have all vanished from the earth. The 
Apollo Belvidere, and the Venus de Medici, 
stand in almost solitary grandeur, to remind us 
of the perfection to which the plastic art of the 
ancients had attained. The Alexandrian library, 
as we know, furnished fuel for years for the baths 
of the illiterate Moslems. I used frequently my- 
self to wonder why it had pleased God to blot 
out of existence these magnificent productions of 
ancient genius. It seemed to me to be strange 
that the pall of oblivion should thus be thrown 
over all to which man in the flower of his age 
had given birth. But the solution of the myste- 
ry is found, I think, in the remains of Hercu- 
laneum and Pompeii. AYe there discover that 
every work of man was so penetrated by corrup- 
tion, every production of genius was so defiled 
with uncleanness, that God, in introducing a bet- 
ter dispensation, determined to cleanse the world 
from the pollution of preceding ages. As, when 
all flesh had corrupted his way, he purified the 
world by the waters of a flood, so, when genius 
had covered the earth with images of sin, he 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 155 

overwhelmed the works of ancient civilization 
with a deluge of barbarism, and consigned the 
most splendid monuments of literature and art to 
almost universal oblivion. It was too bad to 
exist ; and he swept it away with the besom of 
destruction.^' If this representation is true- — 
and that it is so, can scarcely be questioned — not 
only are we justified in ascribing to a providen- 
tial interposition the preservation of some remains 
of classical antiquity, but no less so in tracing up to 
the same cause the destruction of so much more. 

The efforts of Charlemagne for the civilization 
of his subjects were not confined to the diffusion 
of mere scholastic learning ; he fully appreciated 
the influence of commerce, and of the fine and 
useful arts, in elevating and refining a people. 
He discovered that it was vain to attempt to re- 
press the rude and barbarous customs, the war- 
like and predatory habits of the Franks, unless 
he could open some fresh outlets for their ener- 
gies ; that it was better to draw off the stormy 
waters along some peaceful channels, than merely 
to pen them up within precarious limits and em- 
bankments. We proceed to give some instances 
and illustrations of his efforts to introduce the 
refining and civilizing influence of art and com- 
merce among his people. 

He appears himself to have practiced poetry 
and music, and to have made many attempts to 
improve and cultivate the taste for the latter 
among the Franks. The psalmody and sacred 
music previously in use among them seems to 
have been of the coarsest and rudest description. 



156 LIFE AND TIMES 

^^The Franks/^ says a chronicler, "with their 
barbarous voices, could not utter the warbling 
sounds and soft cadences, and varied melodies of 
the Romans. They seemed rather to gulp their 
sounds than to utter them/^ When at Rome, in 
the year 786, Charlemagne was much struck with 
the difference between the church-music of the 
Italians and that of his own countrymen. He 
perceived how coarse and rude was that to which 
he was accustomed, when compared with the sub- 
lime and refined harmonies which he now heard. 
He, therefore, requested the pope to allow some 
of his most skilful musicians to accompany him 
on his return. His request was granted, and 
Theodore and Benedict were sent into France, 
with a copy of the Gregorian antiphonal. The 
intercourse of the rival singers was, as usual, of 
the most discordant character. The Franks re- 
fused to adopt the Roman mode of chanting the 
service, maintaining that their own was better; 
whilst the new teachers said that their scholars 
were " as rude and uncultured as brute beasts.^' 
Charlemagne, overhearing the quarrel, summoned 
both parties into his presence to a trial of skill. 
This only confirmed his preference for the Italian 
mode. He, therefore, commanded it to be 
adopted throughout his dominions, and estab- 
lished two singing schools, the one at Soissons, 
the other at Metz, where it was taught. 

The attention of Charlemagne was directed to 
architecture as well as to music, by the manifest 
superiority of that in Italy to any which existed 
In France. It seems probable that the Franks, 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 157 

like the Saxons, built their houses at this period 
almost entirely of wood, and the royal palaces 
differed only from the dwellings of the common 
people in their greater extent, and the larger 
number of slaves attached to them. The graphic 
description given by Thierry of one inhabited by 
Lothaire, in a previous century, is equally appli- 
cable to those occupied by Charlemagne. ^^A 
few leagues from Soissons, on the banks of a 
small river, stands the village of Braine. This 
was one of the immense farms where the Frank- 
ish kings held their court. The royal habitation 
had none of the military aspect which distin- 
guished the castles of the middle ages ; it was a 
large building surrounded with porticos, in the 
Roman style, sometimes composed of carefully 
polished wood, and ornamented with statues not 
altogether wanting in elegance. Round the prin- 
cipal body of the building were disposed the 
lodgings of the officers of the palace, whether 
barbarian or of Roman origin^ as well as those 
chiefs of the tribes who, together with their 
warriors, in accordance with the German custom, 
had entered into truste with the king, that is to 
say, had made an especial jengagement of vassal- 
age and fidelity.^^ '^ Other houses, of meaner 
appearance, were occupied by a large number of 
families, both the men and women of which 
exercised all manner of trades, from that of the 
goldsmith and armourer to that of the weaver 
and tanner; from embroidery in silk and gold to 
the coarsest preparations of flax and wool. Most 
of these families were Gallic, born on that por- 



158 LIFE AND TIMES 

tion of territory which the king had adjudged to 
himself by right of conquest^ or brought by vio- 
lence from some neighboring town, to colonize 
the royal domain. Buildings for agricultural 
purposes, such as stables, sheepfolds, and barns, 
with the hovels of the husbandmen, and the huts 
of the serfs, completed the royal establishment, 
which exactly resembled, though on a larger 
scale, the villages of ancient Germany. In the 
very site of these palaces of the Frank kings, 
there was something which recalled the scenery 
beyond the Rhine; most of them stood on the 
outskirts, and some in the very centre of these 
vast forests, since mutilated by civilization, but 
of which we still admire the remains. It was 
there that the king kept, in a secret apartment, 
in triple-locked chests, his treasures, consisting of 
gold coins, vases, and precious jewels. It was 
there also that he exercised his royal power. It 
was there that he assembled the chiefs and 
bishops from the towns, received ambassadors 
from foreign states, and presided over the great 
assemblies of the Franks, which were followed 
by those feasts, traditional among the Teutonic 
races, at which wild boars and deer were served 
up whole on spits, and staved barrels occupied the 
four corners of the hall. When not employed in 
war, the king went from one of these palaces to 
another, from Braine to Attigny, from Attigny 
to Compiegne, from Compiegne to Yerberie, con- 
suming all the provisions he found ; hunting, 
swimming, or fishing, with his followers."" In 
these abodes of rude and barbarous magnificence 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 159 

dwelt the Frank kings. Had Charlemagne seen 
nothing better, he would, doubtless, have remain- 
ed contented with these, as his ancestors had 
done for so many generations; but he visited 
Italy, and the ruins of ancient Kome, magnificent 
even in decay, could not but excite the monarch's 
admiration. He gazed with wonder at the 
mighty works reared by these old masters of the 
world — bridges, aqueducts, villas, basilicas, mili- 
tary entrenchments — the products and homes of 
military power, patrician luxury, and commercial 
enterprise ; and he determined to erect such upon 
the soil of France. Of the palaces which he 
built in imitation of those he had admired in 
Ital3r, two are specially mentioned, as distinguish- 
ed by unusual beauty, those at Ingleheim and 
Aix la Chapelle. The latter of these, from its 
extent and splendor, was popularly styled Little 
E-ome. For its erection, he obtained from the 
pope a grant of such marbles and mosaics as he 
needed from the ancient palaces and basilicas of 
E-ome and Ravenna. Were the fact less ade- 
quately attested, we might have doubted whether 
even the energy of Charlemagne could have suc- 
ceeded in conveying these massive blocks and 
columns with their delicate carving and tracery 
to so great a distance. Little did the Roman 
emperors and patricians suppose, when they 
reared these stately domes, that at some future 
day, they would only afford quarries whence the 
descendants of those rude chiefs, whom their 
legions were employed in quelling, would r^vaw 
materials for erecting palaces, amidst what <Ya3 



^/f 



160 LIFE AND TIMES 

then the primeval forest on the banks of tlie 
Rhine 

The palaces which he thus erected and adorned, 
Charlemagne surrounded with farms, gardens, and 
vineyards, which were cultivated under his special 
superintendence. It is said that he stocked them 
with exotic plants, and strange animals, either 
collected by himself or sent to him by foreign 
potentates, and that he was careful to introduce 
into them all those better modes of agriculture 
which he observed elsewhere.* 

hat he set a high value upon commerce is 
very^ evident. . He sought to open commercial in- 
tercourse and relations between his own subjects 
and the most distant nationsj With the Sclavons, 
who peopled the coasts of the Baltic, he estab- 
lished a trade in furs and slaves ; and with the 
Greeks in works of art, the precious metals, and 
articles of luxury. He even sent ambassadors to 
the distant court of Persia. They were absent 
four years, and only one of them, Isaac, a Jew, 
returned alive. He was accompanied by envoys 
from Haroun al Raschid, bringing as presents from 
the greatest monarch of the east to the greatest 
monarch of the west, an elephant trained to the 
performance of many wonderful feats of strength 
and skill ; fine silks and cloths from the looms of 
Tabreez ; a magnificent tent ; a water clock, which 
struck the hours, and was adorned with automatic 
figures, which seems to have been regarded by 
the simple-minded Franks as the work of magic ; 

^ Menzel's History of Germany, vol. i. p. 256. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 161 

the standard of Jerusalem, and the keys of the 
holy sepulchre. 

Manufactures were not altogether neglected, 
though they occupied less attention and were re- 
garded as beneath tbe dignity of freemen. The 
only artificers of the period were women and 
slaves. To the female part of the community, 
Charlemagne set an example of diligence by 
making '^ his daughters accustom themselves to 
spin wool, and hold the distaff and spindle, and 
in short employ themselves in all the avocations 
of the time, so that idleness should not corrupt 
them.''* 

Among the most extraordinary projects of this 
remarkable man, was one for the junction of the 
Baltic and the Black Sea, by means ,of a ship 
canal. In the year 793, the Saxons, the Lom- 
bards, and the Saracens, were all up in arms 
against him. As he was thus assailed on three 
sides at once, and could not tell which attack 
would prove most serious, he dispatched an army 
under one of his generals to each of the threat- 
ened frontiers, whilst he, gathering a strong body 
of troops as an army of reserve, took up a position 
in the centre, ready to bear down at once upon 
the point where his presence was most needed. 
In the neighborhood of his encampment, branches 
from the Danube and the Rhine approach within 
a few miles of each other. He at once perceived 
the advantage which would accrue to Europe if, 
by uniting these two, he could make a passage 

* Eginliardt, Vita Caroli Magni, c xix. 

6 



162 LIFE AND TIMES 

for ships from the Baltic to the Euxine^ aod 
thence into the Mediterranean. Indolence was 
insufferable to himself, and he knew it would be 
most injurious to his troops. He therefore em- 
ployed them during this peHod of constrained in- 
action in commencing a canal, three hundred feet 
broad; from the one river to the other. The work 
went on rapidly for some time, but the nature of 
the ground, boggy in some parts and rocky in 
others, presented insuperable obstacles to the de- 
fective engineering of that day. Heavy rains fol- 
lowed by violent floods burst the banks he had 
constructed, and swept away a great part of the 
works. He was, therefore, compelled to abandon 
the great enterprise, nor did he ever find oppor- 
tunity to renew the attempt. The traces of the 
excavations yet remain ; and recently, after the 
lapse of a thousand years, it has been proposed to 
attempt the completion of the work thus adven- 
turously begun. 

. 'i Whilst Charlemagne was thus anxious to benefit 
his countrymen by introducing among them the 
learning, arts, and commerce of foreign nations, 
he did not lose the simplicity and plainness, both 
of manners and costume, which had always char- 
acterized the Franks. Whilst he aspired to emu- 
late the more advanced learning and civilization 
of other countries, he never attempted to merge 
his nationality in theirsf ^^ He always wore,^' says 
Eginhardt, ^'the dress of his own country, that 
of the Franks. Foreign costumes, however hand- 
some they might be, he held in great contempt, 
and he allowed no one to wear them in his pre- 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 163 

sence. Twice only, at Rome — once at the rec[uest 
of Adrian^ and once at that of Leo — he consented 
to assume the Roman dress. On ordinary days, 
his clothes diifeed but little from those worn by 
the common people/^ The monk of St. Grail tells 
an amusing anecdote illustrative of this. Ob- 
serving the young nobles of his court affecting 
the Italian costume, and coming before him clad 
in costly silks and furs, instead of the plain 
homely German dress, which he himself always 
wore, he one winter morning invited them to ac- 
company him to the chase, without giving them 
time to change their dresses for others more suited 
to the season and the sport. Very soon their 
garments were torn to tatters by the thickets, and 
drenched with the rain, which was falling fast. 
On their return, he simply took off his old cloak 
of otter skiuj which he always wore, wrung out the 
wet, and replaced it on his shoulders ; they gath- 
ered around the fire to dry their tattered and 
dripping attire. This completed the destruction 
of their dresses, which now shrivelled up with 
the heat. The emperor then calling the young 
men to him, upbraided them for daring to appear 
before him in such beggarly attire, and dismissed 
them to their homes. 

When occasion seemed to require it, however, 
he could lay aside his Frankish simplicity, and 
assume the magnificence of Constantinople or 
Rome. One such instance is recorded when the 
ambassadors of Nicephorus, the emperor of the 
east, visited his court to negotiate a treaty of alli- 
ance. On their arrival in France, they found 



164 LIFE AND TIMES 

Charlemagne^ as usual, absent on a campaign. 
They followed, and overtook him in his encamp- 
ment on the banks of the Saal. Their arrival had 
been expected, and prepared for. Charlemagne, 
aware how much importance the Greeks attached 
to outwar-d pomp, and knowing, too, that they 
expected nothing but the rude simplicity of a 
barbarous camp, determined to surprise them by 
a display of magnificence and an assumption of 
dignity, which should eclipse even that to which 
they were accustomed at Constantinople. A pavil- 
ion was erected, and fitted up with unusual splen- 
dor. The ambassadors, who were prepared for 
nothing of the kind, were ushered in by the ap- 
pointed ofiicers, and were about to prostrate them- 
selves before a person gorgeously attired and 
seated in a chair of state. They were checked, 
however, and told that this was only the master 
of the horse. They were then conducted into an 
inner chamber, still more magnificently decorated, 
and were prostrating themselves before another 
person more sumptuously dressed than the first; 
but, he proved to be only the Count Palatine. 
The same scene was repeated in the successive 
apartments of the steward and chamberlain ; all 
of whom remained seated as the ambassadors 
passed. Thus, their impatience and expectation 
were heightened by repeated disappointments, 
till at length the doors of the royal presence- 
chamber were thrown open, and the monarch 
himself was discovered dressed in his own simple 
costume, though surrounded by the foreign mag- 
nificence and pomp which he so heartily despised 



or CHARLEMAGNE. 165 

In his mode of life, he was as plain and simple 
as in dress. ^^ He was abstemious in his food, but 
still more so in his drink. In fact, he had _great 
horror of drunkenness in every one, but much 
more so in himself or those around him. As to 
his food, he could not so easily abstain from it, 
and often complained that fasting was hurtful to 
his health. He very rarely gave banquets, but 
when he did so, it was to a great number of per- 
sons at once. Generally his table was served with 
only four dishes, besides the roasted joint, which 
he preferred to all other meat, and which his 
huntsmen used to serve up to him on the spit. 
During the meal, he listened to some narrative, 
or to his reader. In the course of his repast, he 
scarcely drank three times. In the summer, he 
would eat some fruit, and having drunk again, 
would repose for two or three hours. During the 
night, he used not only to wake, but to rise three 
or four times. While he dressed, he admitted his 
friends ; and if any lawsuit required his atten- 
tion, he then heard it and pronounced sentence, 
as though on the judgment-seat. At the same 
time, he assigned to every one the work they 
must do in the course of the day.^^ In this pas- 
sage, we are furnished with the explanation of his 
having been able to accomplish so much, and in 
so many ways. It was by the wise distribution 
' and rigid economy of his time. It is evident, that 
every hour of every day had its assigned duty ; 
that his vast energies were not suffered to go to 
waste through misdirection or uncertainty of pur- 
pose. Not only was he active, but active accord- 



166 LIFE AND TIMES 

ing to a previously arrauged plan aod rule. Per- 
haps no man has ever accomplished much without 
this. It is painful to reflect upon how much 
capability for usefulness has been rendered unpro- 
ductive^ how much activity has been wasted, from 
vagueness of purpose and indefiniteness of aim. 
How many do we see who have activity without 
action^ and motion without progress I The wheels 
may spin round^ and yet the carriage not advance. 
The butterfly, flitting here and there, visits far 
more flowers, and traverses a far wider space than 
the bee ; yet with what poor results ! It is not, 
then, activity only, but activity rightly directed, 
that constitutes the secret of employing time 
well. 

To complete our estimate of the character of 
Charlemagne, it now remains that we consider his 
personal morality. This was irreproachable with 
a single exception. In many of the passages 
quoted, his temperance and integrity have been 
applauded by those who knew him intimately. 
His possession of these virtues seemed the more 
remarkable in that age, and among that people, 
since they were almost unpracticed, at least by 
laymen. "^ That which is so lamentably common 
when barbarism comes into contact with civiliza- 
tion, had happened to the hordes who took up 
their abode within the limits of the old empire; 
they lost their ancient simplicity whilst they re- 
tained their rudeness ; they caught the vices whilst 

* See in proof of this Thierry's Narratives of the Me- 
rovingian Era. 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 167 

they rejected the refinements of tlie conqri^red 
people. To this, however, Charlemagne formed 
a noble exception. He retained all his old Frank- 
ish simplicity and temperance, whilst he aspired 
after the civilization of Rome. Another char- 
acteristic, which excited yet more wonder among 
his rude warriors, was his parental tenderness. 
They, like most other races just emerging from 
barbarism, felt that military fortitude requrred the 
repression of all emotion. It was, therefore, with 
wonder that they saw him profoundly affected by 
domestic bereavements, and his admiring biogra- 
pher can hardly abstain from blame and condem- 
nation when, under such circumstances, he was 
seen even to shed tears. 

The otherwise irreproachable morality of Charle- 
magne has, however, one exception : the purity 
of his life is stained by one sad and serious blot — 
the sin of his age and race — concubinage and 
polygamy. Though his violations of the law of 
chastity have been greatly exaggerated by Gribbon 
and some others, yet the fact is unquestionable. 
It would ill become us to excuse or palliate con- 
duct so emphatically denounced and condemned 
by the word of God. It behooves us, on the con- 
trary, to uphold God's law in its unswerving and 
unwavering integrity, as just, and holy, and good. 
Tried by that standard, Charlemagne is without 
excuse. Yet is it due to him, when taking mere- 
ly a historical view of his character, and com- 
paring him with his contemporaries, to remember 
that these offences in his age were flagrantly and 
fearfully common, and in the corrupted state of 



168 LIFE AND TIMES 

morals tliat prevailed, were not regarded as pos- 
sessing that criminality, with which a more per- 
fect acquaintance with Scripture has deservedly 
invested them. , - 

These violations of the Divine law, on the part 
of Charlemagne, did not pass without their ap- 
propriate and invariable punishment. Whilst he 
lived his family was rent asunder, and very often 
the peace of his kingdom was disturbed, by broils 
between his legitimate and illegitimate children; 
and, after his death, the feuds between the various 
branches of his family tended very much to that 
disruption of his empire which brought back the 
reign of anarchy to Europe. 

On one occasion Pepin, his son by Himiltruda, 
driven desperate by the insults of Fastrada, the 
queen, and her children, fled from the court. He 
was popular among many of the Frank lords, who, 
remembering that Charles Martel had been born 
out of wedlock, deemed that no disgrace. They 
ardently espoused his cause, and conspired to 
murder the lawful children of their king, and 
compel him to acknowledge Pepin as his lawful 
heir. This conspiracy was only suppressed with 
the loss of many valuable lives. ^^His daugh- 
ters,'' says Eginhardt, ^^were very beautiful, and 
he loved them exceedingly. Happy in every 
thing else, he was most unhappy in their char- 
acter and conduct. He concealed, however, the 
grief which their conduct gave him, and conducted 
himself towards them as though ignorant of the 
evil reports, to which their conduct gave rise.^' 
So true is it that sin always brings with it its own 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 169 

punisliment — if we sow the wind we must reap 
the whirlwind. 

In person, Charlemagne was a model of manly 
beauty. He was considerably above six feet high, 
and perfectly proportioned. His sword, Joyeuse, 
which he brandished as lightly as though it were 
a wand, was so huge and heavy that few even of 
the Frank warriors could wield it. In all military 
exercises, he was unrivalled. In swimming, 
which was one of the most important accomplish- 
ments of the German soldier, he especially ex- 
celled. It is said, that during his first campaign 
in Italy, Desiderius, having shut himself up within 
the walls of Pavia, stood upon the battlements 
looking on the invading army as it arrived before 
the city. The besieged monarch saw troop after 
troop march up without fear; but when he caught 
sight of Charlemagne, armed cap a pie, mounted 
on an iron-clad charger, he was so terrified at the 
commanding aspect of his enemy, that he rushed 
from the walls and hid himself. 
• The following description of Charlemagne's 
personal appearance and habits is taken from the 
romantic Chronicle of Turpin, written probably 
about two hundred years after his death: — ^'The 
emperor was of a ruddy complexion, with brown 
hair; of a well-made, handsome form, but a stern 
visage. His height was about eight of his own 
feet, which were very long. He was of a strong 
robust make; his legs and thighs very »tout, and 
his sinews firm. His face was thirteen inches 
long; his beard a palm; his nose half a palm; 
his forehead a foot over. His lion-like eyes flashed 



170 LIFE AND TIMES 

fire like carbuncles; his eye-brows were half a 
palm over. AVhen he TN^as angry, it was a terror 
to look upon him. He required eight spans for 
his girdle, besides what hung loose. He ate 
sparingly of bread, but a whole quarter of lamb, 
two fowls, a goose, or a portion of pork, a pea- 
cock, a crane, or a whole hare. He drank mod- 
erately of wine and water. He was so strong 
that he could cleave asunder, at a single blow, an 
armed soldier on horseback, from the head to the 
waist, and the horse likewise. Pie easily vaulted 
over four horses harnessed together; and he could 
raise an armed man from the ground to his head 
as he stood erect upon his hand.''' 

With equal exaggerations have the poets and 
romancers of the middle ages perverted the events 
of his reign. In the language of Sir James 
Stephen, ^^they have inverted the whole current 
of history, changed Charles the Glorious and the 
Wise into an enchanted knight, surrounded by 
his paladins, and elevated to the seventh heaven 
of chivalry his kinsman Rolando, of whom history 
only knows that he fell before the treacherous 
Gascons at the pass of Roncesvalles. Yet poetry, 
amidst all her wildest fictions, has in these legends 
perpetuated the record of one great and memora- 
ble truth— the truth, I mean, that the contempo- 
raries of the great conqueror and their descend- 
ants cherished the traditions of his deeds with 
enthusiastic delight, and lavished on his memory 
every tribute which either history could pay or 
imagination ofi'er.^' 

We subjoin some account of these romantic 



/' 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 171 

histories of Ciiarlemagne^ and an abstract of one 
of them. 



MEDIEVAL LEGENDS AND ROMANCES OF WHICH 
CHARLEMAGNE WAS THE HERO. 

These are interesting and curious on many ac- 
counts. 1st, As showing how powerfully his char- 
acter and achievements excited the admiration of 
his own and the succeeding ages. 2d, As show- 
ing the utter ignorance of the simplest facts of 
history and geography which then prevailed. 3d, 
Because the Chronicle of Turpin, from which all the 
others are derived, received the sanction and seal 
of papal infallibility. How wild and extravagant 
were the absurdities to which pope Calixtus gave 
his attestation, let the readers of the following 
abstract of Roland and Ferragus judge: — 

One hundred and three years after the death 
of Christ, Charles the king reigned over France, 
Denmark, England, Lorraine, Lombardy, Gasco- 
ny, Bayonne, and Picardy, and he was emperor 
of Bome, and lord of Christendom. Ibrahim was 
king of Spain, and Constantius emperor of Con- 
stantinople. Now Ibrahim was a pagan who per- 
secuted the Christians without mercy, and ban- 
ished the patriarch of Jerusalem. The banished 
patriarch made his complaint to Constantius, who 
implored the aid of Charlemagne. Charlemagne 
with all speed proceeded to Constantinople, where 
he was received with all honor, and was offered 
presents in profusion, but he declined them all, 
and only asked the gift of a few relics^ which he 



172 LIFE AND TIMES 

prized much more highly. Coustantius thereupon 
conducted him to the treasury where they were 
deposited. On opening the door^ an odor of such 
uncommon sweetness and efficacy gushed out, 
that three hundred sick persons were cured on the 
spot. The crown of thorns, the holy lance, a 
piece of the cross enclosed in crystal, a nail from 
the cross, an arm of St. Simeon, Aaron's rod that 
budded, and many other relics, were given to 
him. Overjoyed at the acquisition of such trea- 
sures, he seems to have forgotten the business he 
came about, but being addicted to star-gazing, he 
saw one night a flight of stars traverse the heavens 
and settle over Spain. This, with the vision of 
St. James, recalled him to a sense of his duty. 
The opening of the campaign was not very bril- 
liant, for they beseiged Pampeluna six months 
without being able to take it. At length, by the 
intercession of St. James, the walls fell dowp, and 
they entered without opposition. Ten thousand 
Saracens were thereupon converted, and the rest 
were hung. His success was now almost uninter- 
rupted. He took sixty -six cities in succession. 
Only four oft"ered him any serious opposition, and 
these he very speedily reduced by the simple opera- 
tion of cursing them, on which they nil four took 
fire, and continue burning to this day. The smoke 
and scent from those burning towns, one of which 
is Lucerne, is so poisonous that whoever breathes 
it dies in mortal agony. The narrator, afraid lest 
his statement should be doubted, here adds, ^^ If 
any man will not believe me, he may go to Spain 
and see for himself.^^ After a succession of prodi- 



or CHARLEMAGNE. 173 

gies no less marvellous, they return to Pampeluna, 
and here they receive a visit from the ambassador 
of the sultan of Babylon. The purpose of his 
mission was very simple — it was to fight Charle- 
magne. 

" He had twenty men's strength, 
And forty feet of length, 

That pagan had: 
And four feet in the face, 
( ' Twas measured on the place,) 

xind fifteen in the breadth : 
His nose was a foot and more. 
His brows as bristles wore, 

(He that saw it said,) 
He looked loathly 
And was black as pitch." 

Charlemagne went out to reconnoitre his for- 
midable foe, and after examining him limb by 
limb with minute attention, declined the challenge. 
Ogier the Dane, however, accepted it. Having 
armed himself with great care, he rushed like 
lightning upon his gigantic enemy, who received 
the fierce onslaught with perfect indifi*erence, 
tucked the knight under one arm and his horse 
under the other, and quietly walked oif the field 
with them to a neighboring castle. Knight after 
knight accepted his defiance with the same result. 
At last, ten knights at once attacked the unbe- 
lieving monster, but all shared the same fate. 
At length, lioland, tired of seeing his brethren in 
arms thus carried away one after another, under- 
took the conflict. He armed himself with his 
famous sword, Durindal, and went forth on his 
perilous enterprise. The giant recognizing his 



174 LIFE AND TIMES 

adversarj, put forth all his strength, pulled Eo 
land from his horse, and was actually about to 
carry off the great champion of Christendom as he 
had done his comrades. But Roland contrived by a 
vigorous jerk to throw the giant down, and they 
fell upon the ground together. They fought for 
the remainder of the day on foot, Roland display- 
ing his agility in avoiding the grasp of his enemy, 
and applying the edge of Durindal to all parts of 
his impenetrable hide, but without producing the 
slightest effect, for his sword, though so well tem- 
pered as to cut the hardest marble, could not even 
scratch the skin of the huge Saracen. Next 
morning, the battle was renewed, Roland this 
time armino; himself with a club The fio-ht con- 
tinned till noon, when they began to throw stones 
at one another, but without any result for some 
hours, when the giant, wearied with his exertions, 
became immoderately sleepy, and requested a 
suspension of hostilities whilst he took a short 
nap. This was granted, and he immediately fell 
asleep and began to snore so loud as almost to 
deafen the whole army. Roland, whose courtesy 
was equal to his valor, naturally concluding that- 
the monster's sleep could not be very pleasant or 
easy, selected one of the pieces of rock which had 
been pitched at him, and put it under the sleeper's 
head for a pillow, when his repose at once became 
more tranquil. The giant on awaking inquired 
to whom he was indebted for this act of kindness. 
On learning that it was his antagonist, he pro- 
posed that they should endeavor to decide the 
combat by debating instead of fighting. To this 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 175 

Roland consented. But from words they soon 
came back again to blows. In the course of the 
discussion, the Saracen had let out the secret of 
his being vulnerable in one point. Of this Ro- 
land availed himself in the ensuing conflict, and 
before night closed Ferragus lay dead upon the 
field. 

We assure our readers that this romance, which 
we have divested of many of its wilder extrava- 
gances, affords a favorable specimen of the sort 
of literature which was the chief, almost the sole, 
intellectual provision made for the common people 
through the mediaeval period, and which passed 
among them as authentic history. Grateful ought 
we to be for living in a period when literature of 
a healthy character is so cheap and accessible to 
all. 

The energy and activity of the emperor con- 
tinued unabated to the last. In his seventieth 
year, feeling the infirmities of age creeping on, 
and apprehending that death was not very distant, 
he held councils at Aries, Rheims, Mentz, Tours, 
and Chalons sur Saone, for the purpose of settling 
the succession to the throne. In the same year 
he compelled the Norsemen to renew the treaty 
which they had violated, severely punished the 
Moors of Africa and the Mediterranean islands, 
who had insulted his old age by ravaging the 
coasts of Italy and France; and, according to his 
annual custom, attended the grand hunt, from 
which he returned to Aix la Chapelle on the 1st 
of November, 813. 

In the middle of January, 814, he was seized 



176 LIFE AND TIMES 

with fever on coming out of the bath. He tried his 
usual remedy of abstinence and violent exercise, 
but without effect. He grew rapidly worse. Pleu- 
risy came on. On the seventh day, he received 
the eucharist from the hands of the chaplain, 
Hildebald. On the following day, the 28th of 
January, he made a feeble effort to raise his hands, 
and feeling that death was near, he decently com- 
posed his limbs, closed his eyes, calmly said, 
"Lord Jesus, into thy hands I commend my 
spirit,^' and breathed his last. He was in the 
seventy-second year of his age, had reigned forty- 
seven years over the Franks, forty-three over the 
Lombards, and fourteen as emperor of the west. 
He was interred in the cathedral erected by 
him at Aix la Chapelle. In order to distinguish 
from ordinary mortals, even in death, the potent 
monarch who had so signalized himself by his 
achievements during life, he was buried sitting in 
a chair of state composed of ivory and gold. The 
chair is still shown at Aix, in attestation of the 
legend. How vain is the attempt to arrest the 
equalizing power of death by funeral pomp ! In 
the grave the rich and the poor meet together be- 
fore the Lord, who is the maker of them all. The 
testimony of one of the least of Christ's little 
ones, who had received only a cup of cold water 
in his name, forms a more valuable distinction 
than the blazonry of heralds, or the wealth of 
nations lavished on the funeral pile. The pra^^er of 
every one for himself should be, '^ Let me die the 
death of the righteous, and let my last end be 
like his.'^ Then, though our earthly lot be as 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 177 

obscure as Charlemagne's was illustrious, we shall 
inherit a crown of glory, which fadeth not away, 
and compared with which the diadem of the hero 
of our work was a paltry and insignificant bauble. 
The righteousness to which this promise is an- 
nexed, however, must be more than that which 
human merit can supply. Man, the inheritor of 
a fallen and corrupt nature, is altogether defiled 
and unclean. The just and holy law of his Crea- 
tor demands a perfect obedience which he cannot 
give. Sin has ruined his soul. A ransom, how- 
ever, has been found. ^' God so loved the world, 
that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoso- 
ever believeth in him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life.'^ He hath appeared to put away 
sin by the sacrifice of himself; and now God 
commandeth men every where to repent, and, by 
believing on the message of his grace, to be re- 
conciled to him. May it be the reader's privilege 
to know by a heartfelt experience, these blessed 
truths 1 Kenouncing his own righteousness, and 
repenting of all sin, may he cling, by a simple 
faith, to the Son of God, as the only refuge for 
perishing sinners. Born again of the Holy Spirit, 
and in his strength taking up the Saviour's light 
and easy yoke, he will pass through life, animated 
by the highest hopes, and sustained by the richest 
consolations, until death shall unite him to that 
glorious throng who raise the everlasting anthem 
— ^' Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from 
our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings 
and priests unto God and his Father, — to Him be 
glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.'' 



LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER VI. 

CONCLUSION. 

Forebodings of Charlemagne as to the fate of his empire — Melan- 
clioly review of Florus — Civil wars — lavages of tlie Northmen — 
Did the entire system of Charlemagne perish with him? — Sum- 
mary of results — Practical deductions. 

A MONK of St. Loupj writing a few years after 
the deatli of Charlemagne, says — ^^ Charlemagne, 
always travelling, once came unexpectedly and 
by chance to a town on the coast of Narbonnese 
Gaul. Whilst he was at dinner, and before he 
had let it be known that he was in the town, 
Norman pirates came to commit their depreda- 
tions in the very port. When the people of the 
town saw the vessels arrive, they supposed that 
they were those of persons who had come to 
trade, and began to debate whether they were 
Jews, Africans, or Britons. But the able Em- 
peror, observing the construction and speed of the 
ships, said to his attendants, ^ These are not the 
vessels of friendly merchants, but cruel pirates.' 
At these words, the Franks all ran to attack the 
Corsairs, striving who should first reach them, 
but in vain. The Normans, learning that he 
whom they used to call Charles le Marteau, was 
^herC; wer^ at once seized with fear^ lest their 



or CHARLEMAGNE. 179 

whole fleet should be captured or sunk by him ; 
they therefore escaped^ by a flight inconceivably 
rapid^ not from the swords only^ but from the 
very eyes of their pursuers. But the pious 
Charles, filled with awe, rose from the table where 
he had been sitting, went to the window which 
looked eastward, and long remained silently there 
with his countenance covered with tears. No 
one venturing to interrogate him as to the cause 
of his grief, the brave prince at length explained 
to the great men who stood about him the reason 
of his action and his tears. ' Know you, my 
friends,^ he said, ' why I weep so bitterly ? Truly 
I have no fear that these men can harm me by 
their miserable piracies, but I am deeply grieved 
that they have dared to touch these shores whilst 
I live, and I foresee, with irrepressible grief, the 
evils which, after I am dead, will overwhelm my 
successors and their people. ^^ * 

The fears thus expressed by Charlemagne for 
the fate of his empire were by no means ground- 
less. Florus, a deacon of the Church at Lyons, 
writiijg shortly before his death, which happened 
about fifty years after that of Charlemagne, thus 
mournfully contrasts the events of his youth with 
those of his old age. ^^A noble empire then 
flourished under an illustrious prince. There 
was but one ruler and one people. Love on the 
one hand, and fear on the other, maintained good 
order everywhere. The Frankish nation stood 



* Collection des Memoirs relatifs d VHistoire de France. 
Par M. Guizot. 



ISO LIFE AND TIMES 

supreme before the world^ whilst to it Greece, 
Italy, and the barbarous nations, sent embassies. 
But now how fallen ! It has lost the splendor, 
the power, the very name of an empire. There 
is no one who can be regarded as emperor. In- 
stead of a king, we see a kinglet ; instead of a 
kingdom, a fragment. There is no longer a 
national -assembly, no longer any administration 
of the laws, and, if an embassy arrives, it can 
nowhere find a court. What will become of the 
nations of the Danube, the Rhine, the Rhone, 
the Loire, the Po ? Ancient!}^ united by the ties 
of peace, those bonds are now all broken, and 
they are rent asunder by miserable dissensions.^' 

Something of the mournfulness of this review 
is probably to be ascribed to the petulance of old 
age, which, always in remembering its youth, is 
prone to say, '' The former days were better than 
these. '^ Still the description of the change 
which had passed over Europe is substantially 
true. The empire established by Charlemagne 
crumbled to pieces when he died. 

So speedily did the work of disintegration and 
dismemberment begin, and so rapidly did it ad- 
vance, that within fourteen years of the death 
of Charlemagne many of the German provinces 
had proclaimed their independence, and civil war 
was waged in the very heart of France itself. It 
is indeed true, that this crisis was accelerated by 
the feeble and superstitious character of Louis 
the Meek, as he was called by the monkish 
chroniclers of his day; but it is no less true that 
the empire could only be held together by the 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 181 

iron hand of the great emperor. Charles Martel, 
Pepin, and Charlemagne, father, son, and grand- 
son, had in succession filled the Frankish throne 
with equal energy and power, and it was not to 
be expected that greatness should descend to the 
fourth generation — Louis proved himself un- 
equal to the emergency. He was in consequence 
deposed three years afterwards. This had not 
the effect of allaying the storm, but rather aggra- 
vated it. Two years later, he was reinstated 
upon the throne, but a large number of the in- 
surgent lords continued in rebellion. On the 
death of Louis, the civil wars broke out with 
fresh vehemence and intensity. Men, women, 
and children, were indiscriminately slaughtered, 
churches burned, the consecrated places ransack- 
ed ; nothing was sacred from the cruelty, avarice, 
and lust, of men whose passions seemed to have 
gathered new violence from their forcible repres- 
sion during the long reign of Charlemagne. In- 
testine war produced external weakness. The 
Northmen, whose appearance on the coast had 
wrung tears of indignation and grief from the 
aged hero, now found nothitig to repel their 
attacks. The ships which Charlemagne had 
caused to be built for the defence of the coast, 
and the guards he had stationed at the mouths of 
the rivers, had been disbanded : all the precau- 
tions which his far-seeing wisdom had taken 
against the growing power of these pirates had 
been abandoned. The same generation which 
fought under Charlemagne saw these marauders 
sail up thft Loire, plunder the populous and opu- 



182 LIFE AND TIMES 

lent towns upon its banks, and carry off so jniich 
spoil that they were compelled to liberate their 
prisoners from want of space in their vessels. 
Similar ravages were carried on along the whole 
line of coast, and upon the banks of all the prin- 
cipal rivers. Whilst the northern and western 
shores were thus laid waste by pirates, the Sara- 
cens on the southern, and the Thuringians on the 
eastern frontiers, were not slow in the work of 
spoliation and revenge. Thirty years after the 
death of Charlemagne, Ragnar Lodbrog sailed up 
the Seine, seized and plundered Paris without 
any attempt at resistance, and having laden his 
barks with spoil, was induced to evacuate the 
city by a ransom of seven thousand pounds' 
weighlj of silver. To complete this picture of 
disgrace and ruin, it only remains to be added, 
that a Frank army marched past a detachment of 
the Northmen, who were ravaging the very heart 
of their country, without making any attempt to 
check them, from their eagerness to attack another 
party of their own countrymen in the neighbor- 
hood 3 so that the invaders plundered the district 
in peace, whilst the two armies were fighting each 
other."^ ^^ Only fifty years had elapsed since 

^' If the Norman chroniclers are to be credited, Tvhen 
Charles the Simple, a few years later, ceded Neustria 
(now Normandy) to them, they were required to do 
homage for it. Rollo would only consent' to do homage 
by deputy. The grim warrior, who was summoned 
from the ranks for this purpose, instead of stooping to 
kiss the king's foot, tried to raise it to his mouth. In 
doing so, he threw the poor monarch upon his back, 
and then retired amid the undisguised merriment of 
bis comrades. 



or CHARLEMAGNE. 183 

Charlemagne, at the zenith of his glory and 
power, had renewed the western empire ; several 
warriors, who had followed him to Eome, and who 
had assisted at his coronation, ^^et lived. They 
had, doubtless, thought to see the foundation 
laid of the most powerful of monarchies ) they 
saw all the strength of that monarchy annihilated 
without a struggle, all its frontiers invaded, all 
its treasures dissipated. There did not remain in 
the vast compass of the western empire, a single 
town that was secure against the attack of bri- 
gands and pirates. Paris had been taken by the 
Normans. Aix la Chapelle was taken the follow- 
ing year; the suburbs of Rome had been burned 
by the Saracens. All the other large towns had 
been in turn ravaged by the barbarians. In the 
course of a single generation, a great people had 
disappeared. Thus deceitful and transient is the 
greatness acquired by arms.'^ * Before five gene- 
rations had passed away, so completely had the 
integrity of the empire been destroyed, that it 
was split up into more than fifty distinct and in- 
dependent principalities — the strife of races had 
begun anew — unrestrained anarchy again ran 
riot over Europe — darkness once more covered 
the earth and gross darkness the people. 

Many historians, misled (as we think) by 
these appearances, have hence concluded that 
Charlemagne accomplished nothing permanent — - 
that he was but as a flash of midnight lightning 
which gleams from the darkness, illumines the 

•^ Sismondi's France under the Carlovingians, chap. viii. 



184 LIFE AND TIMES 



I 



horizon for a moment^ and then is swallowed np 
by the darkness again^ leaviog no trace behind. 
" For a time/' says one, '^ the reign of Charle- 
magne acted like oil upon the waters ; but the 
day which God gave him passed by and all was 
storm again ; he came as a sunbeam in a dark 
day, as a meteor in the tempest, dazzling and 
wonderful, but shedding no permanent or abiding 
light/' ^^He was,'' says another, ''a torch, flung 
into the dark tempestuous abyss, soon to be 
extinguished, and leaving no trace upon the 
gloom which for the moment is dispelled." 
These rhetorical common-places are very apt to 
lead us astray. . Never are we so likely to be be- 
trayed into error^ as when we base our arguments 
upon a metaphor. The view of the case taken 
by these writers, seems at best to be a partial and 
defective one. No era, no generation, is so un- 
connected with what precedes and what follows 
it, as these figures suggest, and these arguments 
assume. There are no episodes in history. All 
great epochs, parenthetic as they may appear, are 
yet indissolubly connected with what went before, 
and with that which succeeds them. Each gen- 
eration is a link in the great chain of history. 
The course of events forms one connected whole, 
overruled by ^' the Prince of the kings of the 
earth." Whilst it must be admitted, that very 
much of the system we have been tracing out did 
perish with its founder, it did not and could not 
all pass away. In the few lines which' yet re- 
main, we shall point out what was really perma- 
nent, and what was only temporary, in the iuflu- 



OP CHARLEMAGNE. 185 

ence exerted by Charlemagne upon his contempo- 
raries. 

1. He formed the point of transition from bar- 
barism to feudalism. There was strife and insub- 
ordination in the era which succeeded his reign, 
as well as in that which preceded it, and scarcely 
less violent and intense; but it was ^together 
diiferent in character. That of the former age 
sprang from the wild and uncontrollable impulses 
of barbarous hordes, who had no home, no coun- 
try, who spurned all restraint, and cared only for 
plunder. The violence of the subsequent age 
was that of the same races when they had been 
compelled to settle down within their own limits, 
when they had acquired something of a territo- 
rial nationality, and had organized feudal institu- 
tions. It would be altogether out of place here 
to discuss the nature or the merits of feudalism, 
beyond the remark, that it was a step in advance 
— a step necessary to be taken in the passage of 
Europe from the wild anarchy which followed 
the downfall of the Roman empire, to the set- 
tled order and progressive civilization of modern 
times. 

2. The intellectual activity which formed the 
distinguishing glory of the reign of Charlemagne, 
did not pass away without leaving results behind 
it. The preceding period had been one of utter 
darkness and stagnation. From the death of 
Eoethius to the birth of Bede there is scarcely a 
single name recorded which we can mention with 
respect. The page of history is but the dull 
monotonous record of. barbarous invasions nar- 



186 LIFE ANI) TIMES 

rated by barbarous clironiclers. But witli the 
reign of Charlemagne there was a sudden out- 
burst of intellectual life and activity. The tor- 
por and inaction were at an end. So quick and 
complete was the change, that it can be compared 
only to the sudden bursting forth of an Arctic 
summer,' which, in a few days, clothes the frozen 
barren soil with verdure and flowers. But was 
not the mental activity of this reign also like the 
Arctic summer, in the brevity of its continuance 
as well as in the suddenness of its outburst? 
Was it not a forced and unnatural vigor, soon to 
relapse into sterility again ? This may have been 
the case to some extent; but still, during that 
brief period, germs and seeds were deposited 
which did not die — which lay torpid for a time, 
but which in due season sprang up and bore 
abundant fruit. We can trace the influence of 
that revival of learning downward throughout 
the middle ages; sometimes latent, sometimes 
manifest ; sometimes as seed below the soil ; 
sometimes as fruits and flowers above it ; but yet 
continuously existing and operating to the great 
era of revival in the fifteenth century, when the 
human mind, freed from the fetters which Rome 
had imposed upon it for so many centuries, 
entered into the enjoyment of that liberty where- 
with Christ makes his people free. God grant 
that it may never be entangled with a second 
yoke of bondage ! 

Whilst these results, which Charlemagne did 
not contemplate, and which he was the uncon- 
scious instrument in the hands of God of effect- 



OF CHARLEMAGNE. 187 

ingy have remained to exercise a permanent influ- 
ence upon Europe^ that universal empire which 
he was ambitious to establish^ perished with him. 
His history^ in this respect, is that of all conquer- 
ors who have cherished the same design. It is 
not granted to mortal man to establish a univer- 
sal monarchy. After an interval of a thousand 
years, on the same scene, Napoleon, in his tower- 
ing ambition, aspired to this height. He aimed 
to become the Charlemagne of the nineteenth 
century, and to reconstruct the empire which had 
crumbled to pieces ten centuries before. How 
miserably he failed is fresh in the memories of 
all. From all his victories, which threatened to 
subdue the whole earth, he has only 

**Left a name, at which the world grew pale, 
To point a moral or adorn a tale." 

There can be but one universal monarchy. 
Already are the foundations of this empire laid — • 
not in might, but in weakness — by the shame, 
humiliation, and death of its King. This hu- 
miliation shall prove the glory of all his subjects ; 
his poverty, their riches; his death, their life. 
He must reign till he hath put all enemies under 
his feet — till every knee shall bow and every 
tongue confess that he is Lord. His empire is 
to be as lasting as it is universal : '' Thy throne, 
O Grod, is for ever and ever : a sceptre of righte- 
ousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom :^^ '^ they 
shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon en- 
dure, throughout all generations.'' It is a 
^' kingdom which cannot be moved/^ '' though 



188 LIFE AND TIISIES OF CHARLEMAGNE. 

heaven and earth be shaken.'' He shall rule hib 
enemies ^^with a rod of iron/' and ^^ dash them 
in pieces like a potter's vessel ;" yet ^^ in his days 
shall the righteous flourish ] and abundance of 
peace so long as the moon endureth." 

^^Come forth out of thy royal chambers, 
Prince of all the kings of the earth ! put on the 
visible robes of thy imperial Majesty : take up 
that unlimited sceptre which thy Almighty Fa- 
ther hath bequeathed thee ; for now the voice of 
thy bride calls thee, and all creation sighs to be 
renewed.'^ 



THE END. 

\ 



H. 98 831 










k» "j^ t"^ ♦ •^Si©^ . \*> "X* ► . - ~ 





















'o . . ^ A 







'bv' 






' .. «' 






. . ♦ ^'V 






<> ''Tv; 



<Ci°^ .1 



-ov^ 



«?*. ♦•.« 




-^^0^ 



: .«5°^ 








. N^. ' • • • A^ ... ^. • * aN* , 



//A^-'^^'o 







^ 






vs. '» . . « A 




.<" » 



<^^ * 




'<^^. *•"• .V 




















N. MANCHESTER, 
^^^^ INDIANA 46962 




